Opinion ID: 2276719
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: introduction

Text: The United States Supreme Court for 60 years has been sending out binding precedents explaining the due process requirements for notice  including notice by mail  but the principal opinion has marked them return to sender. I respectfully dissent. The foundation on which our economic system is built is the constitutional protection of property rights against government abuse and overreaching. Central to this foundation is procedural due process  the constitutional requirement that an individual has the right to notice and the right to be heard before the government can take his or her property. In this case, the city of Saint Louis took Mohammad Bhatti's property without any notice that apprised him that the city was going to take his property. The due process violation is stark. The landmark case on the due process right to notice is Mullane v. Cent. Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 70 S.Ct. 652, 94 L.Ed. 865 (1950), decided 60 years ago. Mullane authorized notice by first-class mail where the government has an interest in finding an affordable means of providing notice and where there is reasonable assurance that the notice is effective. Where the method of notice is less than the traditional service of process, Mullane requires that it be the best practicable. The notice attempt here by regular mail did not meet this requirement. This failure to give notice violates the most rudimentary demands of due process of law. Peralta v. Heights Med. Center, 485 U.S. 80, 84, 108 S.Ct. 896, 99 L.Ed.2d 75 (1988) (quoting Armstrong v. Manzo, 380 U.S. 545, 550, 85 S.Ct. 1187, 14 L.Ed.2d 62 (1965)). Mohammad Bhatti, the aggrieved property owner in this case, is one of many relative newcomers to Saint Louis who has bought real property, rehabbed it and, in the process, helped to arrest the decline of a great city. Bhatti's misfortune in this case stems from the fact that he listed the property  which was vacant while he was rehabbing it  as his address where tax bills were to be sent. As a vacant property, it was an address to which the United States Postal Service does not deliver mail. Bhatti did not receive the property tax bills and was delinquent in the amount of $1,452.06; as a result, a tax lien was placed on that property. The collector of revenue foreclosed the tax lien on the property, it was sold and a judicial proceeding was held to confirm the sale. Lewis Mitchell Company bought the property for $7,600.00, and Bhatti received $6,147.94 after the property taxes were paid. At the time of the foreclosure and sale, Bhatti had the property listed with a realtor for a sale price of $169,900.00. In this whole case, first-class mail was the only means by which the city actually attempted to inform Bhatti of the foreclosure, the foreclosure sale and the judicial confirmation hearing. These three notices were sent to the vacant property; Bhatti received none of them. [1] At the hearing on Bhatti's motion to set aside the judgment of foreclosure, the judge agreed that Bhatti had not received any notice but held that because Bhatti did not present evidence that the city was aware that the notices were not delivered, the notices were sufficient. Under Mullane, Bhatti was entitled to notices that were reasonably calculated to apprise him of the judgment of foreclosure, the foreclosure sale and the confirmation hearing. While mail may be sufficient in some circumstances to satisfy due process when the property owner actually receives notice, in the circumstances of this case, notice by mail is insufficient. Because the cost of notice is borne by the property owner or by the foreclosure purchaser when the tax lien is satisfied, there is no extra expense to the city in providing notice that actually notifies the owner in these tax foreclosure proceedings, even if the city has to use traditional service of process. There was no governmental interest that justified the inadequate means of notice that were used in this case. The government spent 42 cents in postage on two occasions and 44 cents in postage on a third occasion  a total of $1.28  to try to notify Mohammad Bhatti, the landowner whose tax bill was unpaid, that he was going to lose his property in a tax lien foreclosure. None of these regular-mail notices were delivered. One dollar and 28 cents. According to the principal opinion, that is all the due process to which Bhatti is entitled. For one dollar and 28 cents, a vacant home that he was rehabbing and had listed for sale for $169,900 was taken away and sold for $7,600 to satisfy the unpaid taxes of less than $1,500. [2]