Killgore v. City of South El Monte, No. 20-55666 (9th Cir. 2021)
Annotate this Case
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal based on failure to state a claim of a 42 U.S.C. 1983 action brought by plaintiff, alleging that the City violated his Fourth Amendment rights when authorities, without a warrant, searched his massage business.
The panel concluded that the Fourth Amendment permitted the warrantless searches of plaintiff's massage business where the California massage industry is a closely regulated industry and the Fourth Amendment's warrantless search exception for administrative searches of businesses applied. The panel applied the factors in New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691 (1987), and held that the warrantless inspections were reasonable under the Fourth Amendment because there is no question that curtailing prostitution and human trafficking is a substantial government interest; the warrant exception is necessary to further the regulatory scheme considering the potential ease of concealing violations; and the City ordinance governing massage establishments and the conditional use permit sufficiently restrained the City in both the time and purpose of each inspection. Therefore, the district court properly dismissed plaintiff's Fourth Amendment claims.
Court Description: Civil Rights. The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal, for failure to state a claim, of an action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that the City of South El Monte violated plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment rights when authorities, without a warrant, searched his massage business. The panel first held that the California massage industry is a closely regulated industry and accordingly the Fourth Amendment’s warrantless search exception for administrative searches of businesses applied. Applying the factors articulated in New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691 (1987), the panel next held that the warrantless inspections were reasonable under the Fourth Amendment because (1) there was no question that curtailing prostitution and human trafficking were substantial government interests; (2) the warrant exception was necessary to further the regulatory scheme considering the potential ease of concealing violations; and (3) the City ordinance governing massage establishments and the conditional use permit KILLGORE V. CITY OF SOUTH EL MONTE 3 sufficiently restrained the City in both the time and purpose of each inspection.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.