See v. City of Seattle

Appellant
See
Appellee
City of Seattle
Appellant's Claim
That the city of Seattle Fire Department must have a search warrant consistent with the safeguards against unreasonable search offered by the Fourth Amendment to perform a fire code inspection of a locked private warehouse.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
Norman Dorsen
Chief Lawyer for Appellee
A. L. Newbould
Justices for the Court
Hugo Lafayette Black, William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Abe Fortas, Earl Warren, Byron R. White (writing for the Court)
Justices Dissenting
Tom C. Clark, John Marshall Harlan II, Potter Stewart
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
5 June 1967
Decision
Upheld See's claim and overturned two lower courts' decisions allowing entryby the fire department over the owner's objections without a warrant.
Significance
The ruling established an administrative warrant system to conduct health andsafety inspections at private business properties not open to the public. Toavoid violating the Fourth Amendment, a city must demonstrate reasonablenessby submitting its formal procedures for conducting such inspections to a magistrate. Since the See ruling, the Court identified several exceptionsnot requiring warrants including inspections of liquor and firearms businesses, aerial surveillance, search of students in public schools, and airline security screenings.
Fundamental protection of an individual's right to privacy is provided by theFourth Amendment to the Constitution. The amendment established the `right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.' The amendment further stipulates that warrants may only be issued when supported by `probable cause, supported byOath and affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched,and the persons or things to be seized.' The Fourth Amendment grew directly from experiences with British authorities in the American colonies in the 1700s.
With rapid population growth and urban expansion following World War II, governmental regulation of businesses grew as well. Assuring compliance with cityhealth and safety standards required various means to inspect on a regular basis. Such inspections commonly focused on the condition of electrical wiring, rodent infestation, plumbing, trash accumulation, zoning ordinances, fire codes, and job safety. The Supreme Court had not addressed the application ofFourth Amendment protections to such `administrative' inspections until 1959.The Court held in Frank v. Maryland (1959) that city health officialsdid not need warrants to inspect private dwellings even when owners opposedentry. The Court distinguished between administrative needs to obtain entry to private properties and criminal investigatory needs. The inspections required less rigorous protection of the individual's privacy and were not held totraditional Fourth Amendment standards.
Accordingly, the city of Seattle Fire Department contacted See regarding a routine city-wide inspection to assess compliance with Seattle fire codes. Seewould not allow the city access to his locked commercial warehouse without awarrant showing probable cause that a violation was expected. The city arrested See for violating the Seattle Fire Code. See argued in his trial that thewarrantless inspection violated his rights under the Fourth and Fourteen Amendments. The city argued that such administrative searches were automaticallyrestricted by the ordinance and regulations directing the inspection. See, who was convicted of the violation and fined $100, appealed the conviction to the Washington State Supreme Court which upheld the lower court's decision. The U.S. Supreme Court issued certiorari to hear this case concurrentlywith a similar challenge, Camara v. Municipal Court (1967), involvingan inspection of a private residence.
Protection from Administrative Searches
The Court found in favor of See by a 6-3 vote. Justice White, writing on behalf of the majority, wrote that the Court saw no reason to distinguish betweenthe need for administrative entry for enforcement of commercial property standards and police entry. Both need Fourth Amendment safeguards. Similarly, the Court found in Camara that inspection of a private dwelling also required a warrant. These two decisions, announced on the same day by the Court,reversed the earlier Frank decision.
In See, White found that the "businessman, like the occupant of a residence, has a constitutional right to go about his business free from unreasonable official entries upon his private commercial property." The Court disagreed with Seattle by finding that the ordinance actually provided few restrictions leaving much discretion to the inspectors on how to conduct their searches. White concluded "that warrants are a necessary and a tolerable limitationon the right to enter upon and inspect commercial premises. Such warrants should be limited in scope, well defined in purpose, and specifically targetedto what is to be inspected. The need for individual privacy must be weighed against the public need for effective enforcement of the regulation." White did recognize that "surprise may often be a crucial aspect of routine inspections of business establishments." Therefore, warrants may be reasonably obtained in some situations prior to initially approaching the owner of the business. As for See, he could "not be prosecuted for exercising his constitutional right to insist that the fire inspector obtain a warrant authorizing entry" tohis locked warehouse.
Justice Clark, joined in dissent by Justices Harlan and Stewart, favored theprevious Frank decision. Inspection of private properties for purposesof protecting public health and safety should not be hampered by the same "blanket requirement of the safeguards necessary for a search of evidence of criminal acts." Clark feared that reversing Frank would greatly crippleenforcement of city ordinances throughout the country "jeopardizing . . . thehealth, welfare, and safety of literally millions of people." Worst of all,wrote Clark, the local government must now show probable cause for wishing toinspect an establishment under this "newfangled" warrant system. Enforcementof health and safety codes should automatically satisfy the Fourth Amendment's test of reasonableness, not necessitating individual property justifications. Like many other inspections publicly accepted over the previous 150 yearsof enforcing such standards, nothing in this case suggested to Clark "that the inspection was unauthorized, unreasonable, for any improper purpose, or designed as a basis for a criminal prosecution; nor is there any indication ofany discriminatory, arbitrary, or capricious action." The anticipated lack ofindividual uniqueness for such administrative warrants, unlike in criminal searches, would lead to "boxcar" warrants being identical for each dwelling ina given area. To Clark such a system would create a false appearance of protecting rights, degrade the issuing magistrate and the judicial process, and be time consuming and costly.
Impact
The rulings of See and Camara broadened application of FourthAmendment protection. They established that fire, health, and building inspections were "searches." Therefore, government officials must obtain warrants for administrative entry for both private residences and commercial propertiesnot open to the public. However, the Court also created substantially new and different standards for obtaining such warrants. The warrants required something less than the normal probable cause and "particularity" associated withcriminal investigations. First, "probable cause" was redefined to simply mean "reasonableness" of routine inspections, rather than requiring a detailed level of knowledge about the condition of the property. The lesser degree of proof was required since inspections were considered by the Court neither personal in nature nor focused on a crime and involved limited invasion of privacy. Secondly, the "particularity" requirement of the Amendment was also altered since the desire was to inspect a large number of properties rather than targeting any specific one. In essence, suspicionless searches were recognized.
Following the See decision, the Court identified several exceptions tothe warrant requirements. Businesses subject to pervasive government regulation did not enjoy the same Fourth Amendment protections. These included establishments covered by liquor laws as decided in Colonnade Catering Corp. v.United States (1970) and gun dealers in United States v. Biswell(1972). Operating such businesses posed an "implied consent" to warrantless inspections. In Michigan v. Tyler (1978) the Court ruled that fire investigators and firefighters did not need warrants to investigate a fire duringor immediately after a fire, including efforts to fight a fire. However, anyfurther entries at the site of a fire would require warrants if access was not granted. On the other hand like See, the Court found in Marshallv. Barlow, Inc. (1978) that when owners object to occupational health and safety inspections in nonpublic work areas warrants are required.
Prior to the 1960s, concepts of protecting privacy under the Fourth Amendmentrequired warrants only when government officials were physically intruding actual property. The Court, later in 1967 after See, significantly expanded Fourth Amendment protections once again in the Katz v. United States decision. The Court transformed the Fourth Amendment from a property-based to a privacy-based system. Warrants became necessary if the individual hada reasonable expectation of privacy from government surveillance and confrontation. Even if a person was in a public place they may be constitutionally protected.
Implications for administrative inspections were substantial. For example, use of drug sniffing dogs for random searches in public schools and airport luggage areas called forth issues of safeguarding the privacy of persons from arbitrary invasions by government officials. However, in 1979 the Court ruled the Fourth Amendment had only limited application in public schools since school officials act as surrogate parents. Such warrantless searches were lawful.In 1995 the Court in Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton upheld random, suspicionless drug testing of athletes by finding that a school's interest in deterring drug abuse outweighed students' rights. Young students did not have adult rights. Regarding other public places, President Bill Clinton in1994 pressed for warrantless searches of apartments in public housing projects to fight crime.
Airline safety led to two applications of search. One, clearly warrantless, involved the screening and possible search of passengers prior to boarding airlines. Later in the 1990s concerns increased regarding the sale of unsafe `counterfeit' airplane parts to airlines. In 1995 the Federal Aviation Administration began escalating its search and seizure activities.
Another issue focused on police aerial surveillance. Legal scholars contendedthat if persons had a reasonable expectation of privacy, then governmental aerial surveillance should be subject to warrants. In Dow Chemical Co. v. United States (1986) the Court ruled that aerial photographs used to detect possible Clean Air Act violations did not constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment when no effort was made to protect against the aerial surveillance. The use of heat imagery techniques for environmental regulatory compliance in the 1990s faced similar concerns.
Critics claimed the primary purpose of administrative inspections was not toapprehend violators of laws or to compile information for prosecution, but toimprove the health and safety of the nation's citizens. However, the Court found the threat of prosecution was still present if compliance with regulation did not result. The Court commonly found that laws addressing public healthand safety merely expressed public interest in conducting related complianceinspections. They normally did not state such inspections should occur without warrants.
Related Cases

• Frank v. Maryland, 359 U.S. 360 (1959).
  
• Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523 (1967).
  
• Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967).
  
• Colonnade Catering Corp. v. United States, 397 U.S. 72 (1970).
  
• United States v. Biswell, 406 U.S. 311 (1972).
  
• Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499 (1978).
  
• Dow Chemical Co. v. United States, 476 U.S. 227 (1986).
  
• Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646 (1995).