## Facts

- Carlos Christopher Galvadon worked as the night manager of a small liquor store.
- The store included a back room behind a walk-in refrigerator, accessible via a narrow hallway, containing inventory, a small office, and a restroom.
- The back room was not open to the public and was physically set apart from the retail area.
- The trial court found only the owner and Galvadon had unrestricted access; others (including delivery persons) could enter only with permission and typically under supervision.
- The owner used a video surveillance camera to monitor the back room for business and security purposes.
- During Galvadon’s shift, a man was pepper-sprayed outside; an officer entered the store with the man and another individual to wash off the spray.
- Galvadon told them no one was permitted in the back room, but the officer and the men went there anyway.
- Additional officers arrived, entered the back room, and saw a brick of marijuana in an open box; another brick was found in a bag on the restroom floor.
- After the owner arrived, he consented to a search, and a third brick of marijuana was found in the back room.
- Galvadon was charged with drug offenses; the trial court granted his motion to suppress the marijuana and related evidence on Fourth Amendment grounds.
- The prosecution took an interlocutory appeal limited to whether Galvadon could invoke Fourth Amendment protection (i.e., whether he had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the back room).

## Issues

1. Whether a night manager has a legitimate expectation of privacy in a nonpublic store back room with restricted access, such that he may invoke Fourth Amendment protections against warrantless police entry and search.

## Decision

- The Colorado Supreme Court affirmed the suppression order.
- The court held that, on the trial court’s supported factual findings, Galvadon had a reasonable expectation of privacy from government intrusion in the store’s back room.
- Because the prosecution appealed only the Fourth Amendment expectation-of-privacy question, the court did not decide whether any warrant exception justified the officers’ entry or search.

## Legal Principles

- Fourth Amendment “standing” is not a separate doctrine; the question is whether the challenged governmental conduct infringed the defendant’s own reasonable expectation of privacy.
- A defendant must show (1) a subjective expectation of privacy and (2) an expectation society recognizes as reasonable.
- Employees, including in commercial settings, may have Fourth Amendment protection in nonpublic workplace areas when they exercise meaningful authority to control access and exclude others.
- Limited, permission-based and supervised access by third parties does not necessarily eliminate an employee’s reasonable expectation of privacy in a restricted work area.
- Employer-installed video surveillance for internal business/security purposes does not, by itself, negate an employee’s reasonable expectation of privacy against governmental intrusion in a nonpublic workplace area.

## Conclusion

Because Galvadon, as night manager, exercised substantial control over a restricted, nonpublic back room and expressly attempted to exclude unauthorized entrants, he had a reasonable expectation of privacy there, and the trial court’s suppression of the seized marijuana and related evidence was affirmed.


People v. Galvadon, 103 P.3d 923 (Colo. 2005)