Opinion ID: 853600
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Branches of Federal Due Process and State Article I, Section 12 Doctrine

Text: By 1986, this Court could correctly observe that there was a substantial line of cases treating the `due process' clause of the federal constitution and the `due course' clause of the Indiana Constitution as interchangeable. White v. State, 497 N.E.2d 893, 897 n. 4 (Ind.1986). White addressed claims of violation of state and federal constitutional rights in accepting a guilty plea to a criminal charge. For the quoted proposition, White cited three cases that addressed federal due process and state Article I, Section 12 claims as if there were no difference between them. The first was a case striking down a zoning restriction against gasoline stations in areas that permitted other commercial uses on the ground that the restriction constituted a taking that was not justified by safety concerns and therefore violated both constitutions. See Board of Zoning Appeals v. La Dow, 238 Ind. 673, 676-78, 153 N.E.2d 599, 601 (1958). The second, Dean v. State ex rel. Board of Medical Registration & Examination, 233 Ind. 25, 30-31, 116 N.E.2d 503, 506 (1954), dealt with a claim that legislative regulation of the medical profession was unconstitutional and held that the regulatory program in question did not violate the Due Process Clause of either the federal or state constitutions. The third, Paul v. Walkerton Woodlawn Cemetery Ass'n, 204 Ind. 693, 699-701, 184 N.E. 537, 540 (1933), upheld assessments by the managers of a cemetery association as justified by the articles and bylaws, and therefore not a violation of the due process rights of the member lot holders. Consistent with this precedent, this Court recently noted that, [t]he same analysis is applicable to both the federal Due Process Clause and the state Due Course of Law Clause. Indiana High Sch. Athletic Ass'n v. Carlberg, 694 N.E.2d 222, 241 (Ind.1997) (considering claims that the IHSAA's procedures for addressing student-athlete eligibility were constitutionally defective). The two constitutional provisions do share certain commonalities. Both prohibit state action that deprives a person of a protectable interest without a fair proceeding. See id. Both also require, as a threshold matter, that the claimant have a protectable interest. See id. (citing Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 570-71, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972)); see also Sidle v. Majors, 264 Ind. 206, 223, 341 N.E.2d 763, 773-74 (1976) (`The inquiry, in every case, must be directed to the nature of the right alleged to have been infringed upon.'). This is not to say, however, that the open courts or remedies clause of Article I, Section 12 is in all applications to be equated with the due process provisions of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. In broad brush, the federal provisions guarantee procedural and substantive due process rights. Procedural rights ensure, for example, that a party will be given the opportunity to be heard `at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner.' Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 333, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976). Procedural rights are found in both the civil context, where due process imposes requirements of notice, a right to a hearing, etc., as well as the criminal context, where it is the source of an array of criminal procedural rights, either directly through the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment or via the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The substantive due process strain declares some actions so outlandish that they cannot be accomplished by any procedure. In earlier times, this took the form of preservation of property and contractual rights. See, e.g., Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 386, 1 L.Ed. 648 (1798). It reached a highwater mark in cases invalidating progressive era and New Deal legislation, most notably the now discredited Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 25 S.Ct. 539, 49 L.Ed. 937 (1905), which struck down a state law limiting the work week to sixty hours. This doctrine remains today as a constitutional bar to actions that shock the conscience, see County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 846, 118 S.Ct. 1708, 140 L.Ed.2d 1043 (1998), despite the recognition that guideposts for responsible decisionmaking in this uncharted area are scarce and open-ended, Collins v. City of Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115, 125, 112 S.Ct. 1061, 117 L.Ed.2d 261 (1992). Article I, Section 12 of our State Constitution also has multiple strains, but they are not the same as the federal pair. The first sentence of Article I, Section 12, the remedies clause of our State Constitution, prescribes procedural fairness. It guarantees a remedy by due course of law for injuries to person, property, or reputation. By its terms, this provision applies only in the civil context. [2] It omits any reference to deprivation of life, liberty, or property, which is the trigger of due process requirements in the criminal context. Article I, Section 12 also differs from the due process clauses by providing that the courts shall be open, a requirement that seems meaningful only to civil litigants. In the context of a procedural right to remedy by due course of law in a civil proceeding, as IHSAA held, the Indiana Constitution has developed a body of law essentially identical to federal due process doctrine. The same is not true in the criminal context. To be sure, we find occasional references to the nonexistent due process clause of the state constitution, and some broad statements such as the quoted footnote from White, supra . It is nevertheless very clear that Indiana constitutional law dealing with criminal procedural guarantees varies from the federal constitutional law embodied in the Bill of Rights and now for the most part incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause. [3] Indeed, state criminal procedural doctrines have almost uniformly developed, not by reference to Article I, Section 12, but rather under the various other more specific provisions that make up our state Constitution's counterpart to the Bill of Rights. Finally, there is a strain of Article I, Section 12 doctrine that is analogous to federal substantive due process. As elaborated below, in general this doctrine imposes the requirement that legislation interfering with a right bear a rational relationship to a legitimate legislative goal, but does not preserve any particular remedy from legislative repeal. To presage and capsulize our conclusions under these differing lines of Section 12 doctrine, the Product Liability Act statute of repose is consistent with each. In terms of pure civil procedural due process analysis, there is no issue. The bar of the statute of repose in the Product Liability Act does not purport to regulate the procedure in the courts. Nor is the open courts requirement violated because, as Dague held, it remains the province of the General Assembly to identify legally cognizable claims for relief. If the law provides no remedy, denying a remedy is consistent with due course of law. Finally, there is no state constitutional substantive due course of law violation because this legislation has been held to be, and we again hold it to be, rationally related to a legitimate legislative objective. It is debatable whether the Product Liability Act eliminated a common law remedy, but even if it did, there is no substantive constitutional requirement that bars a statute from accomplishing that.