A property owner sued the City of Omaha under sec. 1983 asserting a number of claims after the city cited him for violations of the City’s littering code resulting from a thirty-foot-high mound of construction debris. The Court found that the City had properly exercised its statutory nuisance jurisdiction, and that the constitutional vagueness, delegation, ex post facto violation, and Fourth Amendment claims are without merit. The Court explained that the inspector’s action of peering into windows of the owner’s dilapidated garage, outside the house’s curtilage, did not violate the Fourth Amendment as no search warrant is needed to peer into a window for confirm or refute an apparent violation. Further, the the Court explained that because the Plaintiff had notice of the alleged violation, the inspector’s placarding of the garage did not violate due process.
Nikolas v City of Omaha, 2010 WL 1948197 (8th Cir. C.A., NE 5/17/2010)
The opinion can be accessed at: http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/10/05/091679P.pdf
