B.C. ex rel. B.C. v. Plumas Unified School District

Opinion by Judge PREGERSON; Concurrence by Judge BRUNETTI.

This case involves a dog sniff of students at Quincy High School in Plumas County, California. Plaintiff B.C., a Quincy High School student, brought this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and alleged several deprivations of his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures and various state law claims. 2 B.C. named as defendants the Plumas Unified School District, Superintendent Joseph Hagwood, Principal Richard Spears, Vice Principal Arturo Barrera, Assistant Sheriff Rod Decrona, Deputy Sheriff Dean Canalia, and Detec *1263 tive Steven Hitch. 3 B.C. sought injunctive relief, money damages, and certification of a plaintiff class.

Plaintiff and defendants filed cross motions for summary judgment. The district court denied plaintiffs motion for a preliminary injunction, plaintiffs motion for class certification, and plaintiffs motion for summary judgment. The court granted' defendants’ motions for summary judgment and ruled that all defendants were entitled to immunity from money damages. Finally, the court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiffs state law claims.…

concurring in part:

I concur in parts I, II, III, IV, and VI of the majority’s opinion, and while I agree with the result reached by the majority in Part V, I write separately because the majority’s conclusion that an unreasonable search occurred in this case under the Fourth Amendment is not supported by Supreme Court or circuit court precedent.

The majority correctly states that “[a] search occurs when an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to consider reasonable is infringed,” yet the majority fails to identify the reasonable expectation of privacy that was infringed when the plaintiff walked past the drug dog. The interaction between the students and the dog in this case did not implicate a legitimate expectation of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment and did not, therefore, constitute a Fourth Amendment search because the dog could have only detected the presence or absence of con *1270 traband if the dog could have detected anything at all. See United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 123 , 104 S.Ct. 1652 , 80 L.Ed.2d 85 (1984); United States v. Lingenfelter, 997 F.2d 632, 637-38 (9th Cir.1993); United States v. Beale, 736 F.2d 1289 (9th Cir.1984) (en…