Michael Jayne v. Steve Blunk

MEMORANDUM

Michael Aaron Jayne appeals from the district court’s summary judgment in his 42 U.S.C. § 1988 action alleging that Defendants Steve Blunk, Regina Collier, and the Anderson Police Department violated his rights by seeking to obtain his cell phone location data without a warrant. We review the district court’s decision de novo, Snow v. McDaniel, 681 F.3d 978, 985 (9th Cir.2012), and affirm.

1. With respect to Jayne’s Fourth Amendment claim, it is undisputed that the Anderson Police Department submitted a request to Sprint Nextel for Jayne’s cell phone location data without first obtaining a warrant. But that request was withdrawn hours later, before any contemporaneous GPS location information was collected and before any historical data indicative of location were received. Although Sprint Nextel sent Defendants some records after the request was rescinded, Defendants attest that the records were immediately destroyed. Moreover, there is no evidence that Sprint Nextel included location data in those records, in disregard of the -withdrawal of the request for such data.

Even if the records had contained location data, there was still no search by a governmental…