Drivers of a rental car whose names are not listed on the rental agreement have a reasonable expectation to privacy under the Fourth Amendment, the Supreme Court said Monday.
The justices ruled 9-0 in the case, which raised questions about the legality of officers’ search of a rental car that Terrence Byrd was driving in 2014, even though he was not listed as an authorized driver in the rental agreement.
With its ruling, the Supreme Court vacated the decision from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and remanded the case back to the lower court. Justice Anthony Kennedy delivered the opinion.
“Though new, the fact pattern has continues a well-traveled path in this court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,” Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. “Those cases support the proposition, and the court now holds, that the mere fact that a driver in lawful possession or control of a rental car is not listed on the rental agreement will not defeat his or her otherwise reasonable expectation of privacy.”
Citing the Framers of the Constitution and the Fourth Amendment, Kennedy wrote that “few protections are as essential to individual liberty as the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.”
The ruling is likely to ease concerns among privacy experts, who were watching the case to determine how the government’s authority to conduct searches under the Fourth Amendment would change. The justices heard arguments in the case in January, the first of multiple cases raising Fourth Amendment claims the Supreme Court heard this term.
Byrd, the plaintiff, had borrowed a car rented by his fiancee, who was the authorized driver of the vehicle on the rental agreement, and was pulled over by police while driving near Harrisburg, Pa., in 2014.
When the officers searched the car, they found blocks of heroin and body armor in the trunk. Byrd was arrested and charged with possession of heroin with intent to distribute and unlawful possession of body armor.
He was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison, but contested the legality of the search by claiming it violated his Fourth Amendment rights.
A federal district court said Byrd did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the car because he was not the authorized driver listed on the rental agreement. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.
The Supreme Court’s ruling clears up a split among the federal appeals courts. Several appeals courts, including the 3rd Circuit, adopted a rule stating that rental car drivers who aren’t authorized to do so by the rental agreement do not have the legal grounds to challenge a search’s legality.
But other federal courts said the driver can have a reasonable expectation to privacy if the driver of the rental car received permission from the authorized driver. Byrd said he had permission from his fiancée to drive the car.
During oral arguments at the beginning of the year, the justices raised numerous examples that may allow police to legally search a vehicle.
Breyer asked the lawyer for the government for a simple rule that law enforcement have to follow when searching a rental car and seemed troubled by how the court’s decision could impact other cases involving contracts, such as “houses, apartments, sublets, summer cabins.”
In those instances, each is governed by “leases” and “understandings.”
Sotomayor, meanwhile, raised concerns about the impact a ruling in favor of the government would have on police power.
“If we rule that someone without permission has no expectation of privacy even when the renter has given it to them, then what we’re authorizing is the police to stop every rental car and search every rental car without probable cause,” she said.
