United States v. $57,790 In U.S. Currency

MEMORANDUM ** “[Claimants who assert possessory interests in ... forfeited property and pro *605 vide some explanation for their possession have Article III standing to contest the forfeiture.” United States v. $100,348.00, 354 F.3d 1110 , 1119 (9th Cir.2004); see also United States v. $191,910.00, 16 F.3d 1051, 1057 (9th Cir.1994) (“In order to contest a forfeiture, a claimant need only-have some type of property interest in the forfeited items. This interest need not be an ownership interest; it can be any type of interest, including a possessory interest”). Claimants here meet both requirements: Peraza-Soto asserts that she is the owner of the defendant currency, and Perez-Lopez asserts that he is a co-owner, as well as his wife’s bailee. Further, Perez-Lopez was driving the car in which the money was found. Claimants also provide some explanation for their possession: They argue they received the money in exchange for their home. Thus, claimants have met the Article III requirements for contesting the forfeiture. United States v. Section 18, 976 F.2d 515, 520 (9th Cir.1992), and United States v. One Parcel of Land, 902 F.2d 1443, 1444 (9th Cir.1990) (per curiam), do not establish a higher burden for showing Article III standing. Neither case mentions Article III in its discussion of “standing,” nor does either cite any caselaw discussing Article III. Rather, these cases address the showing that a civil forfeiture claimant must make on the merits as a statutory matter. We have on occasion referred to this as a claimant’s “standing” to contest the forfeiture. But, as we explained in United States v. Hooper, 229 F.3d 818 (9th Cir.2000), “[t]he district court’s concluding statement that Claimants lacked ‘standing’ is simply another way of stating that Claimants had failed to establish on the merits a property interest entitling them to relief.” Id. at 820 n. 4. It is this type of “standing” that Section 18 and One Parcel of Land refer to, not Article III standing. The district court erred in concluding otherwise. The district court did not find that claimants had failed to prove their claim on the merits, and thus we cannot affirm on that alternative ground. Claimants demanded a jury trial, but no jury trial was ever conducted. Moreover, the court’s ruling that the property be forfeited, see dissent at 2, does not imply that it considered claimants’ claims on the merits. In a forfeiture action, if the court rules claimants lacked standing, the government, as the plaintiff, wins on the merits, and thus the property is deemed “forfeited.” We therefore cannot find that plaintiffs failed to prove their claim on the merits. REVERSED AND REMANDED. This disposition is not appropriate for publication and may not be cited to or by the courts of this circuit except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3. RAWLINSON, Circuit Judge, dissenting. I respectfully dissent. Although I do not disagree with my colleagues regarding how the standing issue should be analyzed in the context of a forfeiture case generally, I disagree with the application of that analysis to the district court’s decision in this case. As the majority disposition acknowledges, a conclusion that Claimants lack standing “is simply another way of stating that Claimants had failed to establish on the merits a property interest entitling them to relief.” United States v. Hooper, 229 F.3d 818 , 820 n. 4 (9th Cir.2000) (citations omitted). Although the district court inartfully referenced Article III in resolving the question of Claimants’ “standing,” review of the court’s analysis reveals that it ultimately concluded that the Claimants “failed to establish on the merits a property interest entitling them to relief.” Hooper, 229 F.3d at 820 n. 4 (emphasis added). The district court conducted a trial and considered the evidence of ownership and *606 possessory interest presented by Claimants’ counsel. I agree with the majority that Claimants met the Article III requirement for contesting the forfeiture. However, I am also of the opinion that Claimants were given the opportunity to contest the forfeiture on the merits. Of particular interest is the conclusion by the court that the currency be forfeited, rather than a conclusion that the Claimants were not entitled to advance their claims, as would be the case if Article III standing were lacking. See Envtl. Def. Ctr., Inc. v. United States Envtl. Prot. Agency, 344 F.3d 832 , 863 (9th Cir.2003) (denying a party the opportunity to participate in the proceedings where it lacked standing). Because the district court permitted the Claimants to contest the forfeiture on the merits, I would affirm.