Failure to State a Claim

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Vaughn Neita v. City of Chicago, et al

Case No.: 15-1404

Officials: EASTERBROOK, MANION, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Failure to State a Claim

Court dismissed appellant claim in error. Appellant provided sufficient allegations in complaint to allege false arrest and other 4^th amendment violations.

“Without deciding whether the officers’ search of Neita’s business violated the Fourth Amendment, the judge dismissed this claim on qualified-immunity grounds. He did so in light of section 10 of Illinois’s Humane Care for Animals Act, which permits law-enforcement officers who receive a complaint of suspected animal abuse or neglect to “enter during normal business hours upon any premises where the animal or animals described in the complaint are housed or kept, provided such entry shall not be made into any building which is a person’s residence, except by search warrant or court order.” 510 ILL. COMP. STAT. 70/10. The judge concluded that “by following Illinois law as it existed at the time of the search and as it still exists today, [Officers] Raddatz and Uldrych did not violate any clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.””

Reversed and Remanded

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.