Walters v. Hazelwood, city of et al.

Filing 53

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER: IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that plaintiffs motion to reconsider [Doc. #49] is denied. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that, not later than September 20, 2012, the parties shall submit a joint proposed scheduling plan to address the remaining issues. ( Joint Scheduling Plan due by 9/20/2012.) Signed by District Judge Carol E. Jackson on 8/29/2012. (KMS)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MISSOURI
EASTERN DIVISION
RONNIE WALTERS,
Plaintiff,
vs.
CITY OF HAZELWOOD, MISSOURI and
CARL WOLF,
Defendants.

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Case No. 4:09-CV-1473 (CEJ)

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter is before the Court on plaintiff’s motion to reconsider his motion for
summary judgment, following remand by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Defendants oppose the motion and the issues are fully briefed.
Plaintiff Ronnie Walters brings this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983,
asserting that defendants City of Hazelwood, Missouri, and Carl Wolf, the chief of
police, violated his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms (Count I) and
deprived him of his property without due process of law, in violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment (Count II). Previously, the Court denied plaintiff’s motion for partial
summary judgment and granted defendants’ joint motion for summary judgment on
both counts. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment on
plaintiff’s Second Amendment claim but reversed and remanded for further
proceedings on his Fourteenth Amendment procedural due-process claim. Walters v.
Wolf, 660 F.3d 307 (8th Cir. 2011).
I.

Background

On February 11, 2007, a Hazelwood police officer stopped plaintiff while driving
a vehicle without a front license plate, in violation of state law. A records check

revealed an outstanding warrant for plaintiff’s arrest in St. Louis County. The officer
arrested plaintiff and asked him if he had any weapons in the car. Plaintiff reported
that he had a pistol in the car’s center console. The officer seized the weapon and
ammunition from plaintiff. Plaintiff was advised that he was also under arrest for
unlawful use of a weapon because he was a fugitive from St. Louis County. It is
undisputed that Walters had validly purchased the handgun, the handgun was properly
registered, and plaintiff held a valid permit to conceal and carry the handgun.
Plaintiff made written demands for the return of his handgun and ammunition
on April 18th and May 1, 2007. On May 16, 2007, the St. Louis County Circuit Court
issued a complaint against plaintiff for the class C felony of unlawful possession of a
concealable firearm. The court dismissed the complaint on October 23, 2007, after
finding no probable cause to believe that plaintiff had committed the offense.
Plaintiff made his third written demand for return of the firearm on June 12,
2009. Defendant Wolf responded on June 18, 2009, stating: “It is my understanding
that [plaintiff] has an active warrant through the City of Edmundson. Until we are
notified that this matter has been cleared up the gun will not be returned. In order for
the gun to be returned to [plaintiff] we will require a Writ of Replevin.” Plaintiff filed
this action in the Circuit Court for St. Louis County on July 22, 2009; defendants
removed the action to this Court on September 17, 2009.
II.

Discussion

Plaintiff moves for reconsideration, arguing that the Eighth Circuit decision
establishes that he is entitled to summary judgment on the issue of liability.
Defendants oppose the motion, asserting first that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
do not provide for a motion to reconsider. Under the facts of this case, plaintiff’s

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request is procedurally and logically sound. Defendants argue that they are entitled
to have a jury consider whether they are justified in requiring gun owners to obtain a
replevin order. That argument is foreclosed by the Eighth Circuit’s decision in this
case.
In granting summary judgment to the defendants, this Court found that plaintiff
had an adequate postdeprivation remedy in an action for replevin. The Eighth Circuit
disagreed and held that, while the initial seizure of plaintiff’s property at arrest was
valid, that “valid seizure ended with the dismissal of the predicate charges in St. Louis
County and the fugitive warrant in Edmundson County.”1

660 F.3d at 314.

An

actionable constitutional violation “is not complete when the deprivation occurs; it is
not complete unless and until the State fails to provide due process.” Id. at 315
(quoting Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U.S. 113, 126 (1990)). In this case,
the pivotal deprivation is the City’s and Chief Wolf’s continued refusal to return
Walters’s handgun and ammunition after the St. Louis [County] Circuit Court
dismissed the unlawful-use-of-a-weapon charge on October 23, 2007, or
sometime thereafter when authorities deactivated the Edmundson County
warrant for Walters’s arrest. The constitutionally impermissible deprivation
commenced on one of those two dates and . . . relegation to a post-hoc state
tort action to address the deprivation is inherently insufficient.
Id. (citation omitted).
Thus, there are unresolved legal and factual issues that preclude summary judgment.
Specifically, there remains the question of whether the defendants, after the St. Louis
County charge was dismissed on October 23, 2007, were justified in retaining plaintiff’s

1

It is not clear from the record when the Edmundson warrant was dismissed, but
it appears to have been active on the date plaintiff filed suit. See Plaintiff’s Statement
of Material Facts ¶ 25 and fn. vii [Doc. #21] (citing defendant Wolf’s answers to
interrogatories); Hazelwood’s responses to requests for admission ¶ 30 [Doc. #24-2]
(“upon information and belief, the warrant was active until October 2009 when plaintiff
appeared and pleaded guilty to the charges”).
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property pending resolution of the Edmundson warrant in October 2009. Also, there
is a question of whether the defendants were justified in retaining the property after
the Edmundson warrant was resolved.
Accordingly,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that plaintiff’s motion to reconsider [Doc. #49] is
denied.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that, not later than September 20, 2012, the
parties shall submit a joint proposed scheduling plan to address the remaining issues.

___________________________
CAROL E. JACKSON
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Dated this 29th day of August, 2012.

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