October 2017 Preview | District of Columbia v. Wesby

Case No. 15-485 | D.C. Cir. Decision

District of Columbia v. Wesby began with a situation many have encountered, a noise complaint a neighbor lodged against a house party. It ended with an almost one-million-dollar judgement against the responding officers and the city.

In March of 2008, several individuals accepted a friend’s invitation to gather at a home in D.C. The host indicated that she was moving into a new place and invited several people over for a party. As often happens, those with invitations brought along more friends, and twenty-one people eventually ended up at the house. Sometime thereafter, Metropolitan Police Department officers responded to a noise complaint. Upon their arrival, they found the host was not present and contacted her by phone. The host indicated she had permission from the homeowner to host the party, but when the police called the property owner, the owner indicated that no lease had been signed, and thus the host did not have the authority to organize a party on the premises. The officers arrested everyone for unlawful entry.

Sixteen of the twenty-one individuals arrested proceeded to sue the officers and the District of Columbia. Under D.C. law, criminal trespass is when an individual unlawfully enters a location if they knew or reasonably should have known that they are entering the property against the will of the owner. In the instant scenario, however, it was undisputed that those present reasonably believed they had been invited to the home by the lawful renter, a fact that the arresting officers knew. Thus, the district court determined the officers lacked probable cause to arrest the individuals because “nothing about what the police learned at the scene suggests that the Plaintiffs ‘knew or should have known [they were] entering against the [owner’s] will.’” Wesby v. District of Columbia, 841 F. Supp. 2d 20, 32 (D.D.C. 2012). The district court granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs stating that the arrests violated their Fourth Amendment rights and the D.C. law against false arrest. The court also held the District of Columbia liable for negligent supervision.

The D.C. Circuit affirmed, saying that the officers lacked probable cause to arrest for disorderly conduct because they “failed to show any disturbance was of sufficient magnitude to violate local law.” Wesby v. District of Columbia, 765 F.3d 13, 17 (D.C. Cir. 2014). The arresting officers were also not entitled to qualified immunity because “no reasonable officer could have believed there was probable cause to arrest Plaintiffs for entering unlawfully . . . .” Id. at 26.

The Court will hear the case to determine two issues. First, whether “officers had probable cause to arrest the partiers under the Fourth Amendment,” and second, “whether, even if there was no probable cause to arrest the apparent trespassers, the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because the law was not clearly established in this regard.” The outcome of this case could have a significant impact on the ability of police officers to arrest suspects on probable cause, a standard Judge Janice Rogers Brown believes is currently an “impossible standard for finding probable cause . . . [which] undercuts the ability of officers to arrest suspects” and is a “heightened threshold that is not called for under our precedents.” Id. at 31 (Brown, J. dissenting).