United States Seventh Circuit

In a class action against local government officials for surreptitiously recording phone calls from the local finance department, alleging violations of the Fourth Amendment brought under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983 and Title III, district court's denial of summary judgment is affirmed where: 1) plaintiff presented sufficient evidence of a violation of the Fourth Amendment to withstand summary judgment, as he demonstrated a reasonable expectation of privacy in his phone line at work and that the workplace search was unreasonable in scope; 2) at the time of the recording, it was sufficiently clear that government employees enjoyed a reasonable expectation of privacy in the workplace to preclude qualified immunity; and 3) the district court properly found that defendants waived the qualified immunity defense to the Title III claims as they failed to raise the issue in their original submission.

Appellate Information

• Argued 05/07/2009
• Decided 07/09/2009
• Published 07/09/2009

Judges

• FLAUM, Circuit Judge., Before FLAUM and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, and LAWRENCE, District Judge.

Court

• United States Seventh Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• John E. Partelow, Attorney (argued), Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee., Thomas G. Dicianni, Attorney (argued), Ancel, Glink, Diamond, Bush, Dicianni & Krafthefer, P.C., Chicago, IL, for Defendants-Appellants.