Marion R. Shaw,† v. Darel Hall

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted February 13, 2025*
Decided February 13, 2025
Before
FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge
No. 24-2556
MARION R. SHAW,†
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
DAREL HALL,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Western District of
Wisconsin.
No. 22-cv-657-jdp
James D. Peterson,
Chief Judge.
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).
† Marion-Robert does not appear to be the plaintiff-appellant’s legal name.
Because documents in the record show his legal name is Marion R. Shaw, we have
updated the caption. Plaintiff shall alert the court by motion if he is misidentified. We
also remind Plaintiff that litigating under a pseudonym is not permitted without leave
of the court and requires an extraordinary justification. See Doe v. Trs. of Ind. Univ., 101
F.4th 485, 491–93 (7th Cir. 2024).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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No. 24-2556 Page 2
O R D E R
Marion R. Shaw, who goes by Marion-Robert, sued Darel Hall, an animal control
officer for the Town of Hudson, Wisconsin, alleging that Hall violated his Fourth
Amendment rights by entering his property to investigate a dog-bite incident.
See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court granted Hall’s motion for summary judgment.
Because no evidence shows that Hall conducted an unreasonable search when he briefly
entered the curtilage of Shaw’s home to speak with a resident, we affirm.
We construe the record in favor of Shaw, the party opposing summary judgment.
See Meadows v. Rockford Hous. Auth., 861 F.3d 672, 675 (7th Cir. 2017). In July 2021, Hall
entered Shaw’s property to investigate a dog-bite incident that occurred the previous
day in front of the property. Hall drove up a driveway, proceeded through an open
gate, and stopped at the front of the house. Shaw asserted that two “No Trespassing”
signs were posted along the driveway. Hall then met and spoke with a resident in front
of the house. Because Shaw was not home, the resident provided Hall with Shaw’s
phone number, and Hall left. Later, after Hall and Shaw discussed the incident, the
Town issued Shaw six municipal ordinance violations in connection with the dog-bite
incident.
Shaw then sued Hall, alleging that Hall violated his Fourth Amendment rights
by entering his property to investigate the incident without his permission or a warrant.
The district court granted Hall’s motion for summary judgment, concluding that Hall’s
brief entry to obtain information from a resident, which did not exceed the scope or
duration of the implied invitation, was reasonable. The court rejected Shaw’s argument
that Supreme Court decisions regarding the Fourth Amendment did not apply to him
because the title to his property derived from an 1856 federal land patent. It also
dismissed with prejudice Shaw’s state-law trespass claim, concluding that the “No
Trespassing” signs did not convert Hall’s otherwise lawful entry onto the property into
a trespass.
On appeal, Shaw challenges only the summary judgment rejecting his claim that
Hall violated his Fourth Amendment rights by briefly entering the property without a
warrant or implied license. We review the district court’s decision de novo. Meadows,
861 F.3d at 675.
The district court correctly concluded that Hall did not violate Shaw’s Fourth
Amendment rights. A person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the curtilage of
his home—the area “immediately surrounding and associated with the home.” Florida

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No. 24-2556 Page 3
v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 6 (2013) (quoting Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 180 (1984)).
Thus, warrantless intrusions into the curtilage by law enforcement “to engage in
conduct not explicitly or implicitly permitted by the homeowner” are unreasonable. Id.
But an officer—like a private citizen—typically has an implied license “to approach [a]
home by the front path, knock promptly, wait briefly to be received, and then (absent
invitation to linger longer) leave.” Id. at 8. And that is what Hall did here: He drove up
to the residence along its driveway, spoke with a resident at the front of the house, and
left promptly after his business was finished. No unlicensed physical intrusion
occurred.
Shaw insists that the “No Trespassing” signs along the driveway revoked any
implied license to enter his property. We disagree. The presence of a “No Trespassing”
sign alone does not signal to a reasonable officer that he cannot proceed up a publicly
accessible driveway and knock on the front door of a home. See Bleavins v. Bartels, 422
F.3d 445, 454 (7th Cir. 2005).
In any event, the placement and language of the signs would not have conveyed
to a reasonable officer that he could not enter the property and approach the home. The
signs were located away from the front of the home: One sign was placed along the
driveway about 450 feet from the home’s entrance, and the other was placed 450 feet
beyond that at the intersection of the driveway and the public road. And the signs
merely warned that trespassing would result in a land-use fee and noted that the
property was protected by a land patent. No reasonable officer would have understood
these signs to revoke the implied license to proceed up the driveway and speak with the
occupant of the home.
Finally, Shaw renews his argument that post-1856 Supreme Court precedent
related to the Fourth Amendment does not apply to him because the title to his
property derives from a federal land patent. The argument that a land patent exempts
Shaw’s property from the law is frivolous. See, e.g., United States v. Hilgeford, 7 F.3d 1340,
1342 (7th Cir. 1993) (argument that a litigant is a sovereign citizen not subject to
jurisdiction of United States is frivolous); Van Zelst v. Comm'r, 100 F.3d 1259, 1261 (7th
Cir. 1996) (land patent is “equivalent to fee simple ownership”).
AFFIRMED

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