Opinion ID: 538484
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Ex Parte Attachment.

Text: 12 Doehr argues that Sec. 52-278e(a)(1) is invalid, first, because it dispenses with prior notice and opportunity for a hearing even in the absence of exigent circumstances. A root requirement of due process is the right to a hearing before being deprived of a significant property interest unless the state demonstrates some valid governmental interest    that justifies postponing the hearing until after the event. Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 379, 91 S.Ct. 780, 786, 28 L.Ed.2d 113 (1971) (footnote omitted); see also United States v. Premises & Real Property at 4492 S. Livonia Rd., 889 F.2d 1258, 1263 (2d Cir.1989). Thus, in Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U.S. 337, 339, 89 S.Ct. 1820, 1821, 23 L.Ed.2d 349 (1969), the Court emphasized that state garnishment procedures must ordinarily provide for a pre-deprivation hearing except in situations requiring special protection to a state or creditor interest. In Fuentes the Court made it clear that the type of extraordinary circumstances that warrant postponing the hearing must be truly unusual, such as the need to meet the needs of a national war effort, to protect against the economic disaster of a bank failure, [or] to protect the public from misbranded drugs and contaminated food. 407 U.S. at 90-92, 92 S.Ct. at 1999-2000 (citations omitted). 13 Although the Court later upheld a Louisiana sequestration statute that authorized the seizure of personal property without notice and opportunity for a hearing, see Mitchell v. W.T. Grant Co., 416 U.S. 600, 94 S.Ct. 1895, 40 L.Ed.2d 406 (1974), the application of that statute was explicitly limited to unusual situations where it is within the power of the defendant to conceal, dispose of, or waste the property or the revenues therefrom, or remove the property from the parish, during the pendency of the action. Id. at 605, 94 S.Ct. at 1899. Because the creditor in Mitchell claimed a preexisting right to consumer goods held by the debtor, and because the creditor's lien would expire under Louisiana law the moment the debtor transferred possession, any prior notice would enable the debtor to transfer the goods before the hearing and thereby defraud the creditor. Thus there was a compelling reason to postpone notice and hearing until after the sequestration had initially taken effect. As the Court put it, there is a real risk that the buyer, with possession and power over the goods, will conceal or transfer the merchandise to the damage of the seller. This is one of the considerations weighed in the balance by the Louisiana law in permitting initial sequestration of the property.    [N]otice itself may furnish a warning to the debtor acting in bad faith. Id. at 609, 94 S.Ct. at 1901. 14 The rule to be derived from Sniadach and its progeny, therefore, is not that post-attachment hearings are generally acceptable provided that plaintiff files a factual affidavit and that a judicial officer supervises the process, but that a prior hearing may be postponed where exceptional circumstances justify such a delay, and where sufficient additional safeguards are present. See Terranova, 396 F.Supp. at 1407 (The Supreme Court decisions in [North Georgia Finishing, Mitchell, Fuentes, and Sniadach ] dictate that except in extraordinary situations the prejudgment attachment of real estate belonging to an in-state resident may be effected only after notice to the owner and a hearing) (emphasis added) (footnotes omitted). The only decision in the Sniadach line of cases to find a post-deprivation hearing constitutionally acceptable, Mitchell, carefully limited the reach of its holding to the particular circumstances of the case: 15 Plainly enough, this is not a case where the property sequestered by the court is exclusively the property of the defendant debtor. The question is not whether a debtor's property may be seized by his creditors, pendente lite, where they hold no present interest in the property sought to be seized. 16 416 U.S. at 604, 94 S.Ct. at 1898 (emphasis added); see also North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, 419 U.S. 601, 609, 95 S.Ct. 719, 723, 42 L.Ed.2d 751 (1975) (Powell, J., concurring) (suggesting that Mitchell has been relegated to its narrow factual setting). 17 In sharp contrast to Mitchell, the case before us does present a situation where the attached property is exclusively the property of the defendant, and where the plaintiff hold[s] no present interest in the property sought to be seized. Di Giovanni sued Doehr because Doehr allegedly assaulted him, breaking his wrist, blackening his eye, and causing various other injuries. Assuming the truth of these bare allegations, and without giving Doehr an opportunity to present his own version of the facts, the court issued an attachment on Doehr's home. There were no allegations that Doehr was about to fraudulently dispose of his home, nor was the attachment necessary to obtain personal jurisdiction over Doehr. Since exigent circumstances of this nature clearly formed the basis for permitting an ex parte seizure in Mitchell, we can hardly rely on Mitchell to uphold a procedure that makes such circumstances irrelevant to the inquiry. 18 The highly factual nature of the issues involved in the ex parte proceeding gives us further reason to doubt the adequacy of existing procedures. The dispositive issues in the ex parte proceeding in Mitchell were simply whether the creditor possessed a lien on goods in the debtor's possession, and whether the debtor had defaulted on his payments. The Court stressed that these were uncomplicated matters that lend themselves to documentary proof and that [t]he nature of the issues at stake minimizes the risk that the writ will be wrongfully issued by a judge. 416 U.S. at 609-10, 94 S.Ct. at 1900-01. Distinguishing Fuentes, the Court observed: 19 In Florida and Pennsylvania property was only to be replevied in accord with state policy if it had been wrongfully detained. This broad fault standard is inherently subject to factual determination and adversarial input.    [I]n Fuentes this fault standard for replevin was thought ill-suited for preliminary ex parte determination. In Louisiana, on the other hand, the facts relevant to obtaining a writ of sequestration are narrowly confined. As we have indicated, documentary proof is particularly suited for questions of the existence of a vendor's lien and the issue of default. There is thus far less danger here that the seizure will be mistaken and a corresponding decrease in the utility of an adversary hearing which will be immediately available in any event. 20 Id. 416 U.S. at 617-18, 94 S.Ct. at 1905; see also Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 343-44, 96 S.Ct. 893, 907, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976) (medical determination of disability is sharply focused and easily documented, and thus [t]he potential value of [a pre-deprivation] evidentiary hearing    is substantially less in this context than in Goldberg [v. Kelley, 397 U.S. 254, 90 S.Ct. 1011, 25 L.Ed.2d 287 (1970) ]). 21 Unlike the procedures upheld in Mitchell and Mathews, Connecticut's ex parte proceeding involves the court in a host of difficult factual questions. To issue an attachment, the judge must determine whether there is probable cause to sustain the validity of the plaintiff's claim. Sec. 52-278e(a). The statute is not limited to simple debtor-creditor disputes, where the likelihood of recovery often can be ascertained from documentary proof submitted by the creditor. Instead, the attachment procedure is available in all civil actions, including those arising from such fact-specific events as fist fights, as illustrated by the facts of the present action. In such a case, how can the judge realistically determine the factual validity of the claim when presented with only the plaintiff's version of the altercation? Requiring the plaintiff to file a factual affidavit, though certainly helpful, is of little assistance when the affidavit merely recites facts that are certain to be sharply disputed by the other party. Because the risk of a wrongful attachment is considerable under these circumstances, we conclude that dispensing with notice and opportunity for a hearing until after the attachment, without a showing of extraordinary circumstances, violates the requirements of due process. 22 Despite the highly error-prone nature of Connecticut's pre-attachment procedure, Di Giovanni and the state insist that the private interest at stake is so minuscule that a prior hearing is not constitutionally required. We are unpersuaded by this argument. An attachment can have a substantial impact on a landowner's ability to sell his property, secure a loan, or obtain credit. Given a particularly unlucky set of circumstances, even a temporary attachment can lead to foreclosure proceedings against the homeowner. See Hiers v. Cohen, 31 Conn.Supp. 305, 329 A.2d 609 (Super.Ct. Hartford Co.1973). In any event, the individual's interest in a prior hearing certainly outweighs the state's interest in postponing the hearing until after attachment, which, in the absence of unusual circumstances, is practically nil. See Shaumyan, 716 F.Supp. at 81 (state's interest seems minimal at best). 23