Facts

Armored car company Empyreal Logistics transports cash proceeds from state-legal medical and adult-use cannabis dispensaries to legitimate financial institutions such as banks and credit unions. Empyreal also provides cash transport services for traditional, non-cannabis businesses, such as restaurants and convenience stores. After repeated stops of its armored cars by law enforcement, Empyreal filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief against the United States of America; the U.S. Department of Justice; Attorney General Merrick Garland; Christopher A. Wray, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Kristi Koons Johnson, Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation overseeing the FBI's Los Angeles field office; the Drug Enforcement Administration; Anne Milgram, Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration; and Shannon D. Dicus, San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner.

PLAINTIFF'S CONTENTIONS: Plaintiff contended that law enforcement illegally seized dispensary cash plaintiff transported to legitimate banks and credit unions for deposit. Plaintiff argued that the seizure of the cash from its trucks violated state and federal law and the U.S. Constitution. Plaintiff asserted that it was entitled to protection from highway robberies, regardless of whether they were conducted by criminals or by the sheriff and federal law-enforcement agencies acting under color of law. Plaintiff alleged that its constitutional rights under the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution had been violated by police officers in California and Kansas over the past year. Specifically, plaintiff's vehicles had been stopped and searched by sheriff's deputies five times, including three times over the course of eight weeks in San Bernardino County, California. Plaintiff claimed that three of those stops resulted in seizures of the cash contents of plaintiff's vehicles. Plaintiff alleged that, in San Bernardino County, one of the heists was for $700,000. Plaintiffs further contended that the same deputies pulled over the same truck and the same driver the following month and seized $350,000. Plaintiff asserted that, in every one of these seizures, the stop was pretextual. Plaintiff argued that federal and state law enforcement agencies were targeting its armored cars because it was very profitable for law enforcement agencies to seize the cash proceeds that plaintiff was transporting and keep that money using civil forfeiture.

DEFENDANTS' CONTENTIONS: Defendants denied all contentions. Defendants claimed that there was probable cause a felony had been committed whenever the vehicle was stopped and the cash was seized.

Injuries

Plaintiff claimed that it was injured by the seizure of approximately $1 million in cash, which rendered it unable to perform a service--transportation of cash--for which it had been contracted by its clients.

Result

The settlement for no financial compensation allows plaintiff to resume services.