Caseflicks

Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit • 1982

Engblom v. Carey

677 F.2d 957

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Takeaway

In short, this case held that the Third Amendment can protect tenants and other lawful occupants, but left for further proceedings whether these prison employees had enough residential control to invoke that protection during an emergency strike.

Background

During a 1979 statewide strike by New York correction officers, Marianne Engblom and Charles Palmer, officers at Mid-Orange Correctional Facility, were denied access to their staff housing on prison grounds. Their rooms were their sole residences; they had furnished them and paid monthly rent through payroll deductions. The State then cleared striking officers’ rooms and used them to house National Guardsmen called in to operate the prison. Palmer’s room was indisputably used, and Engblom submitted an affidavit disputing the superintendent’s assertion that hers was not.

The officers sued state officials under § 1983, claiming that their eviction without notice or hearing violated procedural due process and that housing Guardsmen in their rooms without consent violated the Third Amendment. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants. It held that the officers’ occupancy was merely incidental to their employment, not a protected tenancy, and therefore insufficient for either claim. The Second Circuit affirmed dismissal of the due-process claim on different grounds, but reversed and remanded the Third Amendment claim because material factual disputes remained.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether National Guardsmen activated by the Governor were “Soldiers” for purposes of the Third Amendment, and whether the Amendment applies to state action.

Holding

Yes. National Guardsmen were Soldiers within the Amendment’s meaning, and the Third Amendment is incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment against the States.

Reasoning

The court agreed with the district court that the National Guard, when acting under the Governor’s control rather than federalized, is ordinarily a state force. Its members therefore fall within the ordinary meaning of “Soldier” in the Third Amendment.

The Third Amendment protects the fundamental privacy value embodied in the principle that the home is a protected refuge from governmental intrusion. Because that value is fundamental to ordered liberty, the Amendment applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

Issue #2

Whether the Third Amendment protects only fee-simple owners, or also lawful occupants with a right to exclude others from their homes.

Holding

The Third Amendment is not limited to fee-simple owners; it protects lawful occupants whose property-based privacy interests include a legal right to exclude others.

Reasoning

A literal reading of the word “Owner” would confine the Amendment to technical titleholders. The court rejected that approach because the Amendment’s purpose is to protect residential privacy, not merely formal ownership interests.

The court drew on Fourth Amendment and due-process doctrine, both of which recognize that constitutional property and privacy interests can arise from lawful possession and control rather than legal title. Denying protection to a tenant while recognizing Fourth Amendment privacy in an apartment or hotel room would be anomalous.

State law is the starting point for identifying the officers’ property rights, but the ultimate question is federal constitutional law. The relevant inquiry is whether the occupants lawfully possessed their homes and had a recognized legal right to exclude others.

Issue #3

Whether summary judgment was proper on the officers’ Third Amendment claim.

Holding

No. The record permitted a finding that the officers had tenancy-type interests and sufficient residential privacy, so disputed material facts barred summary judgment.

Reasoning

Even if the officers’ housing interests were viewed as incident to employment, New York law required notice, a hearing, and a judicial determination before they could be deprived of possession. They therefore retained a lawful possessory interest during the strike until a lawful eviction occurred.

The facts also supported a stronger tenancy inference. The written housing documents repeatedly called the officers “tenants,” described the payroll deduction as rent, and imposed ordinary landlord responsibilities on the facility. The rooms were the officers’ sole homes, and they supplied their own furnishings beyond basic fixtures.

Although the housing rules authorized inspections and restricted guests, the record did not show how those restrictions operated in practice. Read favorably to the officers, the documents could function as a lease granting substantial exclusive possession rather than merely a revocable employment privilege.

A factual dispute also existed over whether staff housing was provided chiefly to ensure that guards remained near the prison. The governing directive contemplated housing some employees whose presence was not required for the facility’s benefit, and the record did not establish which category included Engblom and Palmer. Their jobs did not require them to live on prison grounds, and the housing was not part of their compensation.

The prison emergency could justify temporarily excluding striking employees from the grounds, but the record did not establish that the emergency also justified quartering Guardsmen in their homes. Thus, the court reversed dismissal of the Third Amendment claim and remanded for further proceedings.

Issue #4

Whether the officers’ exclusion from their housing without prior notice and a hearing violated procedural due process.

Holding

No. The officers had a protectible property interest, but the emergency made pre-deprivation process impracticable and available post-deprivation procedures were constitutionally adequate.

Reasoning

The court rejected the district court’s conclusion that the officers lacked any protected property interest. Their tenancy-type interest in their housing was sufficient to invoke due-process protection, and they were deprived of that interest when the State barred them from their rooms.

Nonetheless, due process is flexible. The near-total strike by a prison staff created an acute security emergency, requiring rapid action and the immediate deployment of approximately 260 untrained Guardsmen. Reports of vandalism and improper use of state property further supported the need to bar striking employees from prison grounds without first conducting hearings.

Under Parratt, the absence of pre-deprivation process is constitutional when quick state action is necessary or advance process is impracticable, provided there is a meaningful later opportunity to challenge the action. The officers’ dispossession was short because they were offered their rooms back at the strike’s end.

New York law provided potential post-deprivation avenues to challenge the exclusion, including procedures governing disciplinary suspensions, correctional oversight mechanisms, and possible actions addressing unlawful use of state property or wrongful eviction. Those remedies were adequate to test the propriety of the temporary dispossession, including whether Engblom had actually participated in the strike.

Dissents

Judge Kaufman

Reasoning

Judge Kaufman agreed that the Third Amendment is incorporated against the States and joined the affirmance of the due-process ruling. In his view, the prison strike created precisely the sort of emergency in which immediate action without prior notice or hearing is permissible, and the available post-deprivation remedies satisfied due process.

He dissented from reviving the Third Amendment claim because he believed the officers had no protected right to exclude the State or its agents from prison staff housing. Their rights of occupancy were heavily restricted: prison officials retained a master key and inspection authority, prohibited overnight guests and inmate access, and could suspend rules during an emergency.

In Kaufman’s view, the housing was closely tied to the officers’ employment and provided for the facility’s benefit, particularly to keep personnel nearby in emergencies. That arrangement was more like possession incident to employment than an ordinary landlord-tenant relationship, even though residence was optional and residents paid a charge labeled rent.

The prison setting was decisive to his analysis. Security and discipline are paramount in a correctional institution, and a strike by nearly all guards made substitute housing necessary. He reasoned that officers who chose prison housing necessarily accepted its limits and implicitly consented to its emergency use by replacement personnel, including National Guardsmen.

Kaufman also regarded the supposed factual disputes as immaterial. Even accepting that Guardsmen occupied Engblom’s room, he would hold as a matter of law that the officers’ limited possessory interests did not bring their dormitory-like staff quarters within the Third Amendment’s protection. He would therefore have affirmed summary judgment in full.