A federal appeals court decided to reverse the dismissal of a lawsuit comedians Eric André and Clayton English filed in 2022 claiming their Fourth Amendment rights were violated.
André and English alleged in their lawsuit that Clayton County officers stopped them in two separate incidents at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport inside the jet bridge as they were about to board flights. The Black celebrities say they were told to hand over their boarding passes and IDs and were asked whether they were carrying illegal drugs.
The pair allege the officers violated their Fourth Amendment rights "to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures," according to the federal appeals court opinion published Friday. They also claimed that the officers stopped them based on their race.
The district court dismissed their lawsuit in 2023, citing the plaintiffs' "failure to plausibly allege any constitutional violations," and all defendants, including Clayton County and the police department's chief, were protected by immunity. But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in its opinion that it found that André and English "plausibly alleged that Clayton County subjected them to unreasonable searches and seizures" and reversed the dismissal "after careful review."
The court affirmed the rest of the district court's dismissal, which includes the celebrities' claim that the officers stopped them based on their race.
The Clayton County Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did representatives for André and English.
Two separate incidents, months apart
English was traveling from Atlanta to Los Angeles for work in 2020 when, he says, Clayton County officers stopped him on the jet bridge after he had cleared security and a boarding pass check by a gate agent, according to his and André's 2022 lawsuit.
"The officers flashed their badges and asked English whether he was carrying any illegal drugs," the lawsuit said. "English denied carrying illegal drugs. English 'understood that he was not free to leave and continue his travel while the officers were questioning him.'"
Officers stood on either side of English, blocking his path to the plane, and asked him for his boarding pass and his ID, which he handed over because he felt he had no choice but to comply, according to the lawsuit. An officer also asked to search English's carry-on, which he allowed them to do, "believing he had no choice."
The officers let English go after they checked his bag, according to the lawsuit.
"Throughout the encounter, Mr. English was worried that if he said anything the officers perceived as ‘out of line,’ he would not be allowed to board the plane or reach his destination," the lawsuit said.
In 2021, André was traveling from Charleston, South Carolina, to Atlanta before heading home to Los Angeles, according to the lawsuit, which says he was stopped on the jet bridge trying to board his flight in Atlanta. André was also stopped on the jet bridge after having cleared multiple security points, according to the lawsuit.
Officers also asked him whether he was carrying any illegal drugs, like cocaine or methamphetamine, which he denied, the lawsuit said. It alleged that he was also asked to hand over his ID and his boarding pass and that complied, believing he could not refuse.
"After approximately five minutes of standing in the narrow jet bridge and being questioned, Mr. André was told by the officers that he was free to leave and board the plane," according to the lawsuit.
The stops were part of the Clayton County Police Department's "drug interdiction program," which aims to selectively stop passengers on the jet bridge before they board flights to ask them whether they are carrying drugs and ask to search their luggage. The department claims the stops are random and consensual.
André and English claim that the stops are not random or consensual and that the police program specifically targets Black passengers and other passengers of color, according to the court opinion.
There were 402 jet bridge stops from Aug. 30, 2020, to April 30, 2021, according to police records, and passengers' races were listed for 378 of them. Of the 378 passengers, 211, or 56%, were Black, and people of color accounted for 258 total stops, or 68%, the celebrities' lawsuit said, The Associated Press reported.
André called the experience "dehumanizing and demoralizing."
"People were gawking at me, and I looked suspicious when I had done nothing wrong," André said when the lawsuit was filed.
The court's decision
In its decision, the federal appeals court held that the complaint sufficiently alleged that the coercive nature of the defendants' actions during their stops made André and English feel that they were not free to leave or that they were "seized" by the officers, meaning they plausibly alleged that their Fourth Amendment rights were violated.
English "plausibly alleged that the officers stopped him and began asking questions without telling him he could leave until after they finished questioning him," the court said, adding that it came to the same conclusion with André.
Barry Friedman, the director of the Policing Project at New York University's School of Law, who gave an oral argument this year in support of the appeal, said he is glad the federal court "recognized the validity" of André and English's Fourth Amendment claims.
"In the United States, you may not be seized or have your belongings searched unless you truly voluntarily consent or the government has at least reasonable suspicion to justify the seizure," Friedman said in a statement. "Never has that basic constitutional principle been more important."
Friedman said he is looking forward to returning to trial court on behalf of the comedians.
However, the court did not find that the comedians were able to plausibly allege that the officers were acting with discriminatory purpose when they stopped them, citing that André and English "do not allege that the individual defendants knew of any racially discriminatory complaint or saw the County’s logs or that the County directed the individual defendants to single out Black passengers for interdictions."
"For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that plaintiffs plausibly alleged that defendants violated their Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures," the court said. "The individual defendants are entitled to qualified immunity, but Clayton County is not. Accordingly, we reverse the dismissal of plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment claims against Clayton County. We affirm the dismissal of plaintiffs’ remaining claims."
