City of Los Angeles v. Patel
576 U. S. ____ (2015) (2015)
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Rule of Law:
A law that requires a business to disclose its records to the police on demand, without affording the business owner an opportunity for pre-compliance review before a neutral decisionmaker, is a facially unconstitutional search under the Fourth Amendment.
Facts:
- The City of Los Angeles enacted Municipal Code § 41.49, which requires hotel operators to record detailed information about their guests, including names, addresses, and vehicle details.
- Section 41.49(3)(a) of the ordinance mandates that these guest records 'shall be made available to any officer of the Los Angeles Police Department for inspection' upon demand.
- The ordinance dictates that inspections should, whenever possible, be conducted in a manner that minimizes interference with the hotel's business operations.
- A hotel operator's failure or refusal to make the guest records available for inspection is a misdemeanor criminal offense, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
- A group of motel operators, represented by Naranjibhai Patel, were subjected to mandatory, nonconsensual, and warrantless inspections of their registries by the Los Angeles Police Department under this ordinance.
Procedural Posture:
- A group of motel operators (Patel et al.) filed suit against the City of Los Angeles in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, bringing a facial challenge to the ordinance.
- Following a bench trial, the District Court entered judgment in favor of the City of Los Angeles.
- The motel operators, as appellants, appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
- A divided three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court's judgment.
- The Ninth Circuit then granted rehearing en banc.
- The en banc Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court, holding that the ordinance was facially unconstitutional.
- The City of Los Angeles, as petitioner, successfully petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari.
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Issue:
Does a municipal ordinance that requires hotel operators to make their guest registries available to police for inspection on demand, without affording an opportunity for pre-compliance review, facially violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice Sotomayor
Yes. The ordinance is facially unconstitutional because it fails to provide hotel operators with any opportunity for pre-compliance review. The Fourth Amendment requires that, absent consent or exigent circumstances, the subject of an administrative search must be afforded an opportunity to obtain review before a neutral decisionmaker before facing penalties for refusing to comply. By authorizing police to arrest a hotel operator on the spot for refusing an inspection demand, the ordinance creates an intolerable risk of unconstitutional searches and harassment. The Court rejected the City's argument that hotels are a 'closely regulated industry,' finding that the various regulations governing hotels are not comparable to the comprehensive schemes for industries like firearms or mining. Even if hotels were closely regulated, the ordinance would still be unconstitutional because it gives police excessive discretion and lacks the certainty and regularity necessary to be a substitute for a warrant.
Dissenting - Justice Scalia
No. The limited inspection of a guest register is eminently reasonable, and the ordinance is constitutional. Hotels are a 'closely regulated industry' with a long history of government oversight, dating back to their origins as common law inns. Therefore, the warrantless inspection regime is permissible under the Fourth Amendment. The ordinance satisfies the three-part test from New York v. Burger: there is a substantial government interest in deterring crime, warrantless inspections are necessary to prevent operators from falsifying records, and the statute provides a constitutionally adequate substitute for a warrant by narrowly limiting the scope of the inspection to the guest register in a public area.
Dissenting - Justice Alito
No. The ordinance should not be held facially unconstitutional because there are circumstances under which it can be validly applied. A facial challenge requires the plaintiff to show that 'no set of circumstances exists under which the [law] would be valid.' The ordinance would be constitutional when, for example, police are acting under a valid warrant, during exigent circumstances like a kidnapping, or with the consent of the hotel owner. Since numerous constitutional applications exist, the law cannot be facially invalid, and the proper remedy for potentially unconstitutional applications should be an as-applied injunction, not striking down the law in its entirety.
Analysis:
This decision significantly reinforces the procedural protections required for administrative searches of businesses under the Fourth Amendment. It establishes that, for industries not deemed 'closely regulated,' the government cannot compel a warrantless inspection without providing an avenue for pre-compliance judicial review, such as an administrative subpoena process. The ruling narrows the scope of the 'closely regulated industry' exception, making it clear that a hodgepodge of general business regulations is insufficient to strip business owners of their expectation of privacy. The case also affirms that facial challenges are a viable method for contesting the constitutionality of statutes that authorize warrantless searches.
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