Horse trader's suit dismissed

COEUR d'ALENE - A federal judge dismissed charges from a Rathdrum horse trader who claimed her constitutional rights were violated when Kootenai County animal control officers seized her emaciated horses.

In a summary judgment Feb. 10, Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill dismissed the suit filed by Blair W. Dunham, stating that the officers acted within their legal bounds when they entered Dunham's property and removed three sickly looking horses when the horse trader was not there in May 2008.

"There was no violation of Dunham's constitutional rights in this case," Winmill concluded. "The probable cause standard is a flexible, common-sense approach requiring only that the facts available to the officer would warrant a belief" that a crime was taking place.

After the horses were seized, Dunham was charged with three counts of animal cruelty. She was found not guilty of all three charges in 1st District Court in February 2009, and she filed suit against the county the next month alleging several of her rights were violated by excessive force, cruel and unusual punishment and conspiracy to interfere with civil rights, among others.

But Winmill said Kootenai County Sheriff's Department and animal control officer Karen Williams acted responsibly removing the horses given their condition.

Tad Leach, Kootenai County undersheriff, called the lawsuit "absolutely frivolous."

The summary judgment means the case presented didn't have enough evidence to warrant a jury trial.

"The fact that it was a summary judgment, the judge didn't feel there was even enough there to warrant a jury listening to it," he said. "They were frivolous claims."

According to court reports, the sheriff's department received complaints from concerned citizens regarding Dunham's skinny, starved-looking horses. When animal control officers knocked on Dunham's door, they observed several unhealthy horses, and noticed that they did not have food and only a little bit of stagnant, dirty water.

They later removed the horses.

Dunham said she bought the horses from a neglecting neighbor in that condition, but Winmill declared that spotting the horses in that condition justified the officers' action.

Dunham's attorney, Larry Purviance, was out of town and could not be reached for comment, but Dunham said the judge's ruling concerned her.

"I'd like to know where our rights are going," she said. "This abuse of power is going to continue, too. They've done it to me and they're going to do it to others. The Constitution is not followed."

The horses were returned to Dunham after she was cleared of the charges.

"The laws in place do not protect regular citizens," she said. "That's how I feel about that."

Leach said he has asked an attorney to look into the possibility of seeking attorney fees and ancillary costs against lawyers who show a pattern of filing frivolous lawsuits.