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Pat-Down Searches at Entertainment Venues Need Justification, Calif. Supreme Court Rules
The Recorder
March 03, 2009
If the San Francisco 49ers intend to search everyone attending home games, they're going to have to prove it's a reasonable act.
In a case being watched closely by professional sports teams nationwide, the California Supreme Court on Monday ruled for the first time that searches at private entertainment venues, such as stadiums, could violate privacy rights.
But the court remanded the suit filed by Daniel and Kathleen Sheehan for further proceedings. The couple owns 49ers season tickets and objected to pat-down searches outside San Francisco's Candlestick Park as a violation of their privacy rights.
The high court decided that the case, which had been decided in the 49ers' favor on a demurrer in San Francisco Superior Court, had an insufficient record to support a ruling on the merits.
"Those who provide private entertainment venues, including the 49ers at NFL football games, have a substantial interest in protecting the safety of their patrons," Justice Ming Chin wrote for a unanimous court. "But when the security measures substantially threaten a privacy right, courts review the policy for reasonableness under the circumstances.
"Here," Chin added in Sheehan v. The San Francisco 49ers Ltd., 09 C.D.O.S. 2525 , "we cannot do so because the record does not establish the circumstances of, or the reasons for, the patdown policy. The 49ers have not yet given any justification for its policy."
The pat-down policy was implemented by the National Football League in 2005.
San Francisco 49ers spokeswoman Lisa Lang said in a prepared statement that the team was disappointed, but was "gratified" that the Supreme Court "stressed that the lower court must consider the important role that the 49ers have in protecting fan safety."
Ann Brick, a staff attorney with the San Francisco-based American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California who represented the Sheehans, said the ruling "reaffirms that businesses don't have carte blanche to violate the privacy rights of their customers."
Not only will the 49ers need to show searches are justified, she added, but also that they're effective and less intrusive than alternatives.
