Source: https://openjurist.org/395/us/337
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 06:10:11+00:00

Document:
FAMILY FINANCE CORPORATION OF BAY VIEW et al.
Respondents instituted a garnishment action against petitioner as defendant and Miller Harris Instrument Co., her employer, as garnishee. The complaint alleged a claim of $420 on a promissory note. The garnishee filed its answer stating it had wages of $63.18 under its control earned by petitioner and unpaid, and that it would pay one-half to petitioner as a subsistence allowance1 and hold the other half subject to the order of the court.
The Wisconsin statute gives a plaintiff 10 days in which to serve the summons and complaint on the defendant after service on the garnishee.2 In this case petitioner was served the same day as the garnishee. She nonetheless claims that the Wisconsin garnishment procedure violates that due process required by the Fourteenth Amendment, in that notice and an opportunity to be heard are not given before the in rem seizure of the wages. What happens in Wisconsin is that the clerk of the court issues the summons at the request of the creditor's lawyer; and it is the latter who by serving the garnishee sets in motion the machinery whereby the wages are frozen.3 They may, it is true, be unfrozen if the trial of the main suit is ever had and the wage earner wins on the merits. But in the interim the wage earner is deprived of his enjoyment of earned wages without any opportunity to be heard and to tender any defense he may have, whether it be fraud or otherwise.
Such summary procedure may well meet the requirements of due process in extraordinary situations. Cf. Fahey v. Mallonee, 332 U.S. 245, 253—254, 67 S.Ct. 1552, 1554—1556, 91 L.Ed. 2030; Ewing v. Mytinger & Casselberry, Inc., 339 U.S. 594, 598—600, 70 S.Ct. 870, 872—873, 94 L.Ed. 1088; Ownbey v. Morgan, 256 U.S. 94, 110 112, 41 S.Ct. 433, 437—438, 65 L.Ed. 837; Coffin Bros. & Co. v. Bennett, 277 U.S. 29, 31, 48 S.Ct. 422, 423, 72 L.Ed. 768. But in the present case no situation requiring special protection to a state or creditor interest is presented by the facts; nor is the Wisconsin statute narrowly drawn to meet any such unusual condition. Petitioner was a resident of this Wisconsin community and in personam jurisdiction was readily obtainable.
A procedural rule that may satisfy due process for attachments in general, see McKay v. MaInnes, 279 U.S. 820, 49 S.Ct. 344, 73 L.Ed. 975, does not necessarily satisfy procedural due process in every case. The fact that a procedure would pass muster under a feudal regime does not mean it gives necessary protection to all property in its modern forms. We deal here with wages—a specialized type of property presenting distinct problems in our economic system. We turn then to the nature of that property and problems of procedural due process.
The result is that a prejudgment garnishment of the Wisconsin type may as a practical matter drive a wageearning family to the wall.9 Where the taking of one's property is so obvious, it needs no extended argument to conclude that absent notice and a prior hearing (cf. Coe v. Armour Fertilizer Works, 237 U.S. 413, 423, 35 S.Ct. 625, 628, 59 L.Ed. 1027) this prejudgment a rnishment procedure violates the fundamental principles of due process.
The rejoinder which this statement of position has drawn from my Brother BLACK prompts an additional word. His and my divergence in this case rests, I think, upon a basic difference over whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment limits state action by norms of 'fundamental fairness' whose content in any given instance is to be judicially derived not alone as my colleague believes it should be, from the specifics of the Constitution, but also, as I believe, from concepts which are part of the Anglo-American legal heritage—not, as my Brother BLACK continues to insist, from the mere predilections of individual judges.
From my standpoint, I do not consider that the requirements of 'notice' and 'hearing' are satisfied by the fact that the petitioner was advised of the garnishment simultaneously with the garnishee, or by the fact that she will not permanently lose the garnished property until after a plenary adverse adjudication of the underlying claim against her, or by the fact that relief from the garnishment may have been available in the interim under less than clear circumstances. Compare the majority and dissenting opinions in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, 37 Wis.2d 163, 178, 154 N.W.2d 259, 267 (1967). Apart from special situations, some of which are referred to in this Court's opinion, see ante, at 339, I think that due process is afforded only by the kinds of 'notice' and 'hearing' which are aimed at establishing the validity, or at least the probable validity, of the underlying claim against the alleged debtor before he can be deprived of his property or its unrestricted use. I think this is the thrust of the past cases in this Court. See, e.g., Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 313, 70 S.Ct. 652, 657, 94 L.Ed. 865 (1950); Opp Cotton Mills v. Administrator, 312 U.S. 126, 152—153, 61 S.Ct. 524, 535—536, 85 L.Ed. 624 (1941); United States v. Illinois Cent. R. Co., 291 U.S. 457, 463, 54 S.Ct. 471, 473, 78 L.Ed. 909 (1934); Londoner v. City & County of Denver, 210 U.S. 373, 385-386, 28 S.Ct. 708, 713—714, 52 L.Ed. 1103 (1908).* And I am quite unwilling to take the unexplicated per curiam in McKay v. McInnes, 279 U.S. 820, 49 S.Ct. 344, 73 L.Ed. 975 (1929), as vitiating or diluting these essential elements of due process.
Every argument implicit in this summary statement of my Brother HARLAN'S views has been, in my judgment, satisfactorily answered in the opinion of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in this case—an outstanding opinion on constitutional law. 37 Wis.2d 163, 154 N.W.2d 259. That opinion shows that petitioner was not required to wait until the 'culmination of the main suit,' that is, the suit between the creditor and the petitioner. In fact the case now before us was not a final determination of the merits of that controversy but was, in accordance with well-established state court procedure, the result of a motion made by the petito ner to dismiss the garnishment proceedings. With reference to my Brother HARLAN'S statement that petitioner's deprivation could not be characterized as de minimis, it is pertinent to note that the garnishment was served on her and her employer on the same day, November 21, 1966; that she, without waiting for a trial on the merits filed a motion to dismiss the garnishment on December 23, 1966, which motion was denied by the Circuit Court on April 18, 1967; and that it is that judgment which is before us today. The amount of her wages held up by the garnishment was $31.59. The amount of interest on the wages withheld even if computed at 10% annually would have been about $3. Whether that would be classified as de minimis I do not know and in fact it is not material to know for the decision of this case.
'But, although an attachment may, within the broad men ing of the preceding definition, deprive one of property, yet conditional and temporary as it is, and part of the legal remedy and procedure by which the property of a debtor may be taken in satisfaction of the debt, if judgment be recovered, we do not think it is the deprivation of property contemplated by the Constitution. And if it be, it is not a deprivation without 'due process of law' for it is a part of a process, which during its proceeding gives notice and opportunity for hearing and judgment of some judicial or other authorized tribunal. The requirements of 'due process of law' and 'law of the land' are satisfied.' 127 Me. 110, 116, 141 A. 699, 702—703.
This Court did not even consider the challenge to the Maine law worthy of a Court opinion but affirmed it in a per curiam opinion, 279 U.S. 820, 49 S.Ct. 344, 73 L.Ed. 975 on the authority of two prior decisions of this Court. See also Standard Oil Co. v. Superior Court in and for New Castle County, 5 Terry 538, 44 Del. 538, 62 A.2d 454, 14 A.L.R.2d 405, appeal dismissed, 336 U.S. 930, 69 S.Ct. 738, 739, 93 L.Ed. 1090; Harris v. Balk, 198 U.S. 215, 222, 227—228, 25 S.Ct. 625, 628—629, 49 L.Ed. 1023.
Comment, Wage Garnishment in Washington—An Empirical Study, 43 Wash.L.Rev. 743, 753 (1968). And see Comment, Wage Garnishment as a Collection Device, 1967 Wis.L.Rev. 759.
'For a poor man—and whoever heard of the wage of the affluent being attached?—to lose part of his salary often means his family will go without the essentials. No man sits by while his family goes hungry or without heat. He either files for consumer bankruptcy and tries to begin again, or just quits his job and goes on relief. Where is the equity, the common sense, in such a process?' Congressman Gonzales, 114 Cong.Rec. 1833. For the impact of garnishment on personal bankruptcies see H.R. Rep. No. 1040, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 20—21.

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