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Articles
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| Lincoln Park couple prevails in lawsuit against city |
VOICE writes, "BY BEN WEINSTEIN
A Lincoln Park couple won a lawsuit against the city last month after successfully arguing that District officials improperly seized documents during a 2003 search of their 9th Street row house.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the city, by seizing documents related to disputed renovation plans for the couple’s row house, violated Laura Elkins’s and John Robbins’s Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
In an opinion issued Dec. 12, Judge Rosemary M. Collyer stated: “Because the warrant did not specify any documents to be seized, the seizure of the documents was outside the scope of the warrant and in violation of Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment rights.”"
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Collyer upheld a ruling from the D.C. Office of Administrative Hearings, finding the District’s search valid but the seizure of documents unwarranted.
In 2001, Elkins and Robbins applied for permits to build a sloped roof over the middle and rear of their house, which is in the Capitol Hill Historic District. The city approved the application and the couple started construction before officials “second-guessed the original approvals and sought to stop the project,” arguing that it violated historic preservations laws, according to Collyer’s opinion.
That led to several years of disputes between homeowners and city officials, as well as residents opposed to the project. The city placed stop-work orders on construction before getting a warrant to search the property.
“It was bizarre,” Elkins said of the experience. “It was so over the top … people didn’t believe me.”
According to court documents, in March 2003 officials from the city’s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and Historic Preservation Office, accompanied by D.C. police officers, searched 20 9th St. NE, confiscating construction records, financial documents and building permits. The documents also stated that officials went through the married couple’s children’s bedrooms while they were home sick, opening drawers and taking photos.
Elkins said her daughter, who had a high fever, “hid under the covers while they went through their rooms.”
The city tried to revoke the building permits, and the couple appealed to the Office of Administrative Hearings. That body sided with Elkins and Robbins and dismissed the proposed revocation.
Before that, a neighbor sued the couple in D.C. Superior Court over the renovation, but the court decided the permits were valid. “This did not satisfy Mr. Maloney,” Collyer writes in her opinion, referring to then-Historic Preservation Office Director David Maloney, who Collyer said “seems to have organized a campaign against the construction on the property.”
Collyer said that Maloney pushed for the stop-work orders in 2002. Then the regulatory department, acting on complaints about illegal construction, asked to search the property. After the couple refused an inspection, the department got a warrant for an administrative search, arguing that construction code violations posed threats to public health, safety and welfare.
The city then announced its intent to revoke the building permits, and the couple appealed.
“The Government had a legitimate interest in preserving the integrity of the protected structure as a[n] historically preserved building,” an Office of Administrative Hearings order states. But, the hearing officer also noted that the seizure of documents went beyond the scope of the search warrant.
In March 2007, the Office of Administrative Hearings denied the city’s attempt to revoke the permits. The final order says that the project does negatively affect the historic district and that opposed neighbors had legitimate concerns. But the District did not initially deny the application based on those factors, and as a result the couple “endured a nightmare situation in which the [District] officials dueled amongst themselves over the propriety of the project, and they sent out mixed messages.”
The courts will decide later this year how much the city must pay Elkins and Robbins in damages.
Elkins said that after spending “hundreds of thousands” of dollars in legal fees, they don’t have enough to finish the project. “We’re so in debt now,” she said. “We’re stuck.”
The regulatory department and preservation office did not immediately return phone calls requesting comment.
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Posted on Jan 04, 2008 19:22pm.
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