## Facts

- Several homeless individuals lived in Los Angeles’s Skid Row and kept personal belongings (e.g., carts, bags, small shelters) in public areas.
- Plaintiffs temporarily left unabandoned property unattended on sidewalks while performing basic tasks such as eating, showering, and using restrooms.
- The property included identification documents, prescription medications, family memorabilia, and hygiene items.
- During routine encampment “cleanups,” City employees seized and immediately destroyed unattended belongings without meaningful notice or a chance to retrieve them, sometimes despite owner اعتراض.
- The City relied on Los Angeles Municipal Code § 56.11, which restricts leaving personal property on sidewalks and parkways.

## Issues

1. Whether seizing and summarily destroying unabandoned but momentarily unattended property on public sidewalks constitutes an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment.
2. Whether immediate destruction of such property without meaningful notice and an opportunity to reclaim it violates Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process.
3. Whether the district court applied the correct standard in issuing a preliminary injunction restricting the City’s seizure and destruction practices.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the preliminary injunction.
- The court held that the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments protect homeless persons from seizure and summary destruction of unabandoned, momentarily unattended personal property.
- The court concluded plaintiffs showed a strong likelihood of success on the merits, and the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting injunctive relief.
- The injunction permitted seizure only with an objectively reasonable belief that the property was abandoned, posed an immediate public health or safety threat, or was evidence/contraband.
- Absent an immediate threat, the injunction barred destruction of seized property unless it was stored securely for up to 90 days with a means for owners to recover it.

## Legal Principles

- A “seizure” occurs when the government meaningfully interferes with an individual’s possessory interests; Fourth Amendment protection is not limited to privacy expectations.
- Violation of a municipal ordinance regulating sidewalk storage does not eliminate constitutional protection for non-abandoned personal property.
- Destruction of personal property is a permanent deprivation that ordinarily requires notice and an opportunity to be heard; exigent public health or safety circumstances may justify limited immediate action.
- For preliminary injunctive relief, courts consider likelihood of success on the merits, irreparable harm, balance of equities, and the public interest; irreparable harm may exist where destruction of essential belongings cannot be fully remedied by damages.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit upheld an injunction limiting Los Angeles’s Skid Row “sweeps,” ruling that the City likely violated the Fourth Amendment by seizing and destroying unabandoned property and violated procedural due process by permanently depriving owners of property without meaningful notice or a chance to retrieve it, while still allowing removal of trash and genuinely hazardous or abandoned items.


Lavan v. City of Los Angeles, 693 F.3d 1022 (9th Cir. 2012)