Opinion ID: 1605148
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Due Process and Access to Courts

Text: The challenged provision is also defective because it deprives the plaintiff of due process and denies open access to the courts. U.S.Const.Amends. V, XIV; La. Const. art. 1 §§ 2, 22 (1974). In Beaudreau v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County, 14 Cal.3d 448, 121 Cal.Rptr. 585, 535 P.2d 713 (1975), a cost bond statute was struck down on the ground that it constituted a taking of property without a prior hearing in violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. [11] The court noted that the purpose of the challenged sections was to protect public entities and public employees against unmeritorious litigation. As in this case, decisional law allowed the plaintiff an opportunity to qualify to proceed in forma pauperis. Under the statute, the court reasoned that a taking occurs if the plaintiff refuses to post the bond and thereby relinquishes his property interest in the form of his claim against the public entity or employee. Conversely, should the plaintiff secure his undertaking from a corporate entity, he will forfeit the nonrefundable premium; if money is deposited in court, the plaintiff is deprived of its use during pendency of the suit. The court concluded that due process mandates a hearing before the undertaking is posted to inquire into the merits of the litigation and the reasonableness of the amount of the bond in light of the defendant's probable expenses. In Williams v. London, 370 So.2d 518, 521 (La.1979), Judge Tate observed in a concurring opinion that the constitutionality of R.S. 42:261 E was not before the court. Citing Beaudreau v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County, supra, he stated that the Louisiana statute is invalid for reasons similar to those used to invalidate the California statute: ... a requirement that a citizen furnish a bond and be liable for attorney's fees when he sues a public official, whereas an official suing a citizen need not file bond or be liable for attorney's fees, is in my opinion unconstitutional. For one reason, the statute offends Art. 1, Section 22, La.Const. of 1974: `All courts shall be open, and every person shall have an adequate remedy by due process of law and justice, administered without denial, partiality, or unreasonable delay, for injury to him in his person, property, reputation, or other rights.' In Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 374-375, 91 S.Ct. 780, 784, 787, 28 L.Ed.2d 113, 117, 120 (1971), the court declared that a Connecticut statute which required prepayment of court fees and costs violated due process because it precluded access to the courts to those plaintiffs who could not afford to pay the costs. The court stated: Perhaps no characteristic of an organized and cohesive society is more fundamental than its erection and enforcement of a system of rules defining the various rights and duties of its members, enabling them to govern their affairs and definitively settle their differences in an orderly, predictable manner.... . . . . . Just as a generally valid notice procedure may fail to satisfy due process because of the circumstances of the defendant, so too a cost requirement, valid on its face, may offend due process because it operates to foreclose a particular party's opportunity to be heard. The State's obligations under the Fourteenth Amendment are not simply generalized ones; rather, the State owes to each individual that process which, in light of the values of a free society, can be characterized as due. [12] The present statute unconstitutionally denies litigants due process and open access to Louisiana courts. For these reasons, that portion of the judgment of the Court of Appeal upholding the constitutionality of R.S. 42:261 E is reversed, and R.S. 42:261 E is declared unconstitutional; the demand of third party defendant Jewitt Hulin for bond for attorney's fees is rejected, at the cost of third party defendant. WATSON, J., concurs. LEMMON, J., concurs and will assign reasons. MARCUS, J., concurs in the result.