AB Realty, LLC v. Scott Lane (Eighth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Apartment Owner's Claims Over Omaha Code-Enforcement Closure)

Full write-up

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in an opinion by Judge Jonathan A. Kobes filed November 6, 2026, affirmed the dismissal of a multifamily owner's constitutional claims arising from a Nebraska city's 2018 closure of an apartment complex for code violations. The decision in AB Realty, LLC v. Scott Lane illustrates how difficult it is for an owner to turn a disruptive code-enforcement closure into a viable federal civil-rights claim, even where the city's own inspector made demonstrably false statements along the way.

The dispute traces to Yale Park Apartment Complex, an 84-unit property in Omaha owned by AB Realty, LLC. In 2018, tenant advocates Hannah Wyble and Lori Vlach began documenting code violations at the property and relaying their findings to the city, which started planning the building's closure. Omaha's Chief Housing Inspector, Scott Lane, applied for and obtained an administrative inspection warrant citing suspected violations in roughly 84 units. The Eighth Circuit's opinion recounts that the warrant application contained several false statements, including that an AB Realty principal had denied the inspector entry, that police had been called to the complex, and that a gas explosion had occurred there.

The city executed the warrant in September 2018, found roughly 2,000 total code violations across the property, ordered tenants relocated, and barred Yale Park from reopening until the violations were cured. The city separately prosecuted AB Realty principal Kay Anderson on misdemeanor code-violation charges; a jury convicted him on a few counts and acquitted him of most. After completing repairs and reopening the building in 2021, AB Realty sued the city, its inspectors, and the two tenant advocates under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, asserting Fourth Amendment, due-process, and takings claims. The district court dismissed the suit, in part staying it pending the outcome of Anderson's criminal case, and AB Realty appealed.

The Eighth Circuit affirmed on every claim. On the Fourth Amendment theory, the court applied the Franks v. Delaware framework, under which a plaintiff must show both that the affidavit contained deliberately or recklessly false statements and that its remaining, truthful content was insufficient to support the warrant. Even accepting the falsehoods, the court held AB Realty had not shown the affidavit's remaining content failed the lower standard that governs administrative inspection warrants, which rests on reasonable legislative or administrative standards rather than ordinary criminal probable cause. The due-process claim failed because AB Realty's complaint blended the interests of the LLC and its individual principals without identifying which protected interest was at stake, and the takings claim failed because the complaint never specified whether it alleged a per se taking or a regulatory taking, a distinction the panel found necessary and unaddressed.

For multifamily and other commercial owners facing an aggressive municipal code-enforcement closure, the case is a reminder that administrative inspection warrants operate under meaningfully looser constraints than criminal warrants, so a challenge built on inspector misstatements still has to clear that lower bar on the affidavit's remaining content. It also underscores that a takings or due-process claim arising from a closure needs real pleading discipline from the outset — naming the specific protected interest, specifying per se versus regulatory takings theory, and separating each plaintiff's distinct interest rather than asserting them collectively — and that a parallel criminal prosecution of a property's principal can delay and complicate the civil case challenging the same closure.

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