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In the Context of a Challenge to the Tax Assessment of a Home, the Town Must Obtain a Warrant Based Upon Probable Cause Before It Can Enter the Home (Over the Homeowner’s Objection) to Inspect it

The Second Department, in a full-fledged opinion by Justice Dickerson, determined that the Town did not make the requisite showing to justify an inspection of the interior of petitioner’s home.  Petitioner had challenged the tax assessment of her property.  Supreme Court had ruled the Town could enter petitioner’s home to inspect it.  The Second Department reversed, finding that Supreme Court improperly placed the burden on the petitioner to demonstrate why inspection should not be allowed.  The burden should have been placed on the Town to make a showing that a warrant allowing entry of the home was supported by probable cause:

We hold that the Town respondents bore the burden of demonstrating their entitlement to enter the petitioner’s home over her objections. The petitioner bore no burden, in the first instance, to demonstrate her right to preclude the Town respondents from entering into her home against her will. The right to be free from unreasonable searches is granted by the Fourth Amendment, and made applicable to the States and their subdivisions by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment (see Mapp v Ohio, 367 US 643), though this right is by no means absolute. By directing the petitioner to move to preclude the Town’s appraiser from conducting an interior appraisal inspection of her home, the Supreme Court improperly shifted, from the Town respondents, the burden of demonstrating their entitlement to enter into the petitioner’s home, to the petitioner to demonstrate her right to preclude the Town respondents from sending an agent into her home. We further hold that, based on a proper balancing of the Town respondents’ interest in conducting the inspection against the petitioner’s Fourth Amendment rights, and the privacy invasion that such a “search” would entail, the Town respondents failed to satisfy their burden. * * *

Since the Town respondents sought entry into the petitioner’s home to have the Town’s appraiser conduct an inspection of the premises, the Town respondents were required to obtain a warrant upon a showing of probable cause. By directing the petitioner to move to preclude the Town respondents from conducting an interior inspection of her home, the Supreme Court improperly shifted the burden from the Town respondents to demonstrate their entitlement to entry into the petitioner’s home upon a showing of probable cause, to the petitioner to demonstrate her right to deny entry to the Town respondents … . “[B]y erroneously requiring [the] petitioner[ ] to move to preclude, the court did not properly evaluate the reasonableness of the inspections sought by respondents, i.e., the court did not conduct the necessary Fourth Amendment analysis balancing respondents’ need for interior inspections against the invasion of petitioner[‘s] privacy interests that such inspections would entail” … . Matter of Jacobowitz v Board of Assessors for the Town of Cornwall, 2014 NY Slip Op 05544, 2nd Dept 7-30-14

 

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