Opinion ID: 4206792
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the amended complaint fails to state

Text: A PROCEDURAL DUE PROCESS CLAIM FOR INADEQUATE NOTICE UNDER ARTICLE I, SECTION 7 OF THE UTAH CONSTITUTION ¶ 25 The plaintiffs’ constitutional claims are asserted under the Utah Constitution. Article I, section 7 of our constitution provides that “[n]o person shall be deprived of life, liberty or 9 BIVENS v. SALT LAKE CITY Opinion of the Court property, without due process of law.” Central to our constitution’s conception of due process of law is timely and adequate notice and an opportunity to be heard. Nelson v. Jacobsen, 669 P.2d 1207, 1211 (Utah 1983) (“Timely and adequate notice and an opportunity to be heard in a meaningful way are the very heart of procedural fairness.”). But there are no hard-and-fast rules for what counts as constitutionally adequate notice. “Due process is not a technical conception with a fixed content unrelated to time, place, and circumstances.” Worrall v. Ogden City Fire Dep’t, 616 P.2d 598, 602 (Utah 1980). Instead, “[d]ue process is flexible and calls for the procedural protections that the given situation demands.” Labrum v. Utah State Bd. of Pardons, 870 P.2d 902, 911 (Utah 1993) (citation omitted). ¶ 26 At the heart of the plaintiffs’ due process claim is the constitutional adequacy of the notice that the plaintiffs received. When we assess the adequacy of notice under the due process provision, the core question that we seek to answer is whether that notice is “reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections.” Jackson Constr. Co. v. Marrs, 2004 UT 89, ¶ 10, 100 P.3d 1211 (quoting Mullane v. Cent. Hanover Bank & Tr. Co., 339 U.S. 306, 314 (1950)). “The notice must be of such nature as reasonably to convey the required information, and it must afford a reasonable time for those interested to make their appearance.” Salt Lake City Corp. v. Jordan River Restoration Network, 2012 UT 84, ¶ 53, 299 P.3d 990 (quoting Mullane, 339 U.S. at 314). In sum, “[a] plaintiff [is] entitled to have . . . essential information imparted to him.” McBride v. Utah State Bar, 2010 UT 60, ¶ 17, 242 P.3d 769 (alterations in original) (citation omitted). ¶ 27 The parking ticket and Small Claims Court Information document are troublingly misleading. The parking ticket tells motorists that they have only ten days to set up an appointment with a hearing officer to “discuss” the propriety of their parking ticket, when in fact the City Code gives them twenty days to challenge their tickets. The parking ticket also fails to inform motorists that they may bypass the hearing officer process and, instead, challenge their tickets directly in justice court. And, according to the plaintiffs, it suggests both that late penalties compound at a more rapid rate than they in fact do and that 10 Cite as: 2017 UT 67 Opinion of the Court penalties continue to compound even as a motorist challenges his or her ticket. While we see more ambiguity than the plaintiffs do on some of these points, as we explain, we are still troubled by the extent to which the parking tickets are misleading. ¶ 28 A motorist who follows the instructions on a parking ticket, sets up a hearing, and loses before a hearing officer will then be given a Small Claims Court Information document. Based on the plaintiffs’ pleadings, this document has its own set of problems. It implies that a motorist’s only recourse from an adverse determination before a hearing officer is to contest the ticket in small claims court, when a motorist may also opt to challenge his or her parking ticket in justice court. It implies that a motorist must file a notice of appeal from small claims court within ten days of an adverse determination, when, at the time this suit was litigated, he or she had thirty days in which to file this document. And it emphasizes—in the plaintiffs’ view, unduly emphasizes—some of the potential consequences of contesting a parking ticket in small claims court: high court costs, attorney fees, and a blow to one’s credit score. It also states that motorists are limited in the legal grounds on which they may challenge their parking tickets: The judge will only hear evidence regarding your parking/civil notice and related violation . . . . If your complaint is regarding . . . whether or not you feel the ordinance is valid and should be changed . . . the courtroom is not the proper place for those types of complaints and will not be addressed by the judge. ¶ 29 As we have said, we are troubled by the misleading statements on the parking ticket and in the Small Claims Court Information document. We share the plaintiffs’ concern that the City’s notices may have the effect of inducing payment of parking fines irrespective of whether a motorist has a good-faith basis for contesting those fines. This is not in keeping with norms of good governance. ¶ 30 Despite our concerns, we nonetheless affirm the district court’s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ procedural due process claim. Not every failure of government rises to the level of a due process violation. As we have explained, the core question in any due process challenge to the adequacy of notice is not whether the 11 BIVENS v. SALT LAKE CITY Opinion of the Court notice is a model of clarity and good governance, but whether it reasonably apprises the prospective litigant of the “essential information” she needs to assert her rights. McBride, 2010 UT 60, ¶ 17. This is not a question we answer in the abstract; instead, we ask whether the notice is “reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections.” Jackson Constr. Co., 2004 UT 89, ¶ 10 (emphasis added). Under the circumstances alleged in the plaintiffs’ complaint, both the parking ticket and the Small Claims Court Information document gave constitutionally adequate notice to the plaintiffs of their right to a hearing.
¶ 31 With respect to the parking ticket, the crux of the plaintiffs’ complaint is that the ticket was misleading in three respects: (1) it erroneously told them they had ten calendar days to schedule a hearing to challenge their parking tickets—when in fact they had twenty days, (2) it misleadingly suggested latepenalties compound at a faster rate than they actually do, and (3) it failed to notify them of their right to seek a hearing in justice court instead of appearing before a hearing officer. ¶ 32 We agree that the statement that the plaintiffs have only ten calendar days to schedule a hearing was misleading. But to have violated the plaintiffs’ due process right to notice, that misstatement must have misled them in such a way that they were effectively deprived of the opportunity for a hearing. See Memphis Light, Gas & Water Div. v. Craft, 436 U.S. 1, 13 (1978) (core due process purpose of notice is “to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections” (quoting Mullane, 339 U.S. at 314)). Under the circumstances of this case, this misstatement does not rise to that level. This is because the plaintiffs’ allegations do not reflect that they suffered prejudice as a result of only having ten days in which to challenge their parking tickets. Nowhere in the plaintiffs’ complaint do they aver that they forewent their hearings because of the ten-day time limit. Disputing a parking ticket is typically a simple matter that requires virtually no factual investigation or development, and no plaintiff alleges that ten days was inadequate time to adequately prepare a litigation strategy. Cf. Lindsey v. Normet, 405 U.S. 56, 64–65 (1972) 12 Cite as: 2017 UT 67 Opinion of the Court (upholding landlord-tenant legal regime against challenge that it provides “an unduly short time for trial preparation”—no more than six days, absent the tenant’s posting a bond—where factual and legal issues are simple and each party has “as much access to relevant facts” as the other). Nor do any of the plaintiffs allege that ten days was not enough time for them to arrange their affairs in such a way that they could appear and contest the ticket. We therefore cannot find a deprivation of due process based on the misleading statement that the plaintiffs had ten, instead of twenty, days to challenge their tickets. ¶ 33 The plaintiffs also suggest that, because the notice misleadingly implied late penalties compound at a faster rate than they otherwise do—and failed to notify plaintiffs of their right to ask for a stay of penalty increases pending resolution of a parking case—they were deterred from pursuing a hearing by the prospect of escalating fines. It is, of course, inappropriate to mislead motorists about the penalties associated with an infraction. But to the extent the notice did contain misleading information about penalties, those misleading statements do not rise to the level of a due process violation because they did not sow confusion about the plaintiffs’ right to contest their parking tickets at a hearing. ¶ 34 First, while they were clearly misleading in other respects, we do not believe that the parking tickets contained obviously misleading information about the schedule of penalties. Instead, the structure of the parking ticket’s text reflected that penalties would only increase in the event that a motorist both declined to timely pay and failed to take steps to challenge his or her ticket.3 3 We note the plaintiffs have alleged that Ms. Reed was assessed a penalty when she paid her parking ticket fourteen days after receiving her ticket—even though she also challenged her ticket before the hearing officer. Supra ¶ 11. This suggests to us that the City may not have stayed the imposition of a penalty while Ms. Reed was engaged in the process of challenging her ticket. If true, this is not acceptable. See SALT LAKE CITY CODE § 2.75.030(E) (2010) (amended 2014) (All penalties “are stayed upon filing the request for hearing[] until judgment is rendered in (cont.) 13 BIVENS v. SALT LAKE CITY Opinion of the Court ¶ 35 The back side of the parking ticket began with a prefatory clause stating that the vehicle had “been observed in violation of . . . the Salt Lake City Code.” It explained that this violation subjected the motorist to “a civil penalty” and that “[f]ailure to pay the penalty may result in the filing of a SMALL CLAIMS COURT ACTION and increased penalties.” (Emphasis added.) The parking ticket then laid out two options for motorists. First, they could pay: “[t]o satisfy the Parking Notice, send payment in the amount indicated on the front of this Parking Notice within ten (10) calendar days.” The parking ticket reflected that if a motorist chose payment as an option, but failed to pay timely, “[p]enalties will increase as follows”—followed by the schedule of penalties of which the plaintiffs in this case complain. It further stated that “partial payment will not clear this notice.” ¶ 36 The second option available to motorists was a “hearing[].” The parking ticket reflected that if a motorist chose this option, he or she “must see the Hearing Officer in person within 10 calendar days from the date of this notice.” It then provided the telephone number to call for more information. ¶ 37 Read as a whole, therefore, the parking ticket did not obviously suggest that penalties would increase even if a motorist chose to pursue a hearing. The statement that penalties “will increase” fell under the “payment” option and therefore appeared only to cover motorists who chose to pay their parking fines but did not pay them timely. It did not cover motorists who chose a hearing. ¶ 38 Additionally, even if the parking tickets could have been written more clearly, our conclusion that its misstatements do not rise to the level of a due process violation is bolstered by the fact that the parking tickets provided the motorists with a number to call if they were confused or needed more information. That is, even if the parking tickets were ambiguous about the circumstances under which fees would increase, the plaintiffs were provided with a simple means of clarifying the meaning of the parking tickets. Under the circumstances, this was enough for constitutional notice purposes. the matter.”). But it does not bear on the adequacy of the notice contained on the parking ticket. 14 Cite as: 2017 UT 67 Opinion of the Court ¶ 39 Two federal constitutional cases from the Sixth Circuit help frame this issue. In Herrada v. City of Detroit, 275 F.3d 553 (6th Cir. 2001), the plaintiff sued Detroit, claiming that its parking citations violated her due process rights because they misled her about the penalties that would be imposed if she failed to timely pay her parking fine. Id. at 555. The Sixth Circuit disagreed. “Although the citation and overdue notice might have contained false and misleading information regarding the penalties for failure to respond,” the court reasoned, “the citation clearly states that a hearing is available to contest the City’s allegation that the vehicle owner committed a parking violation,” and it also “provide[s] [a] telephone number[] to call for more information.” Id. at 557. Thus, the court concluded, any misleading information about penalties did not violate due process because “[t]he City’s notices were . . . reasonably calculated to inform vehicle owners of the allegations against them and the procedures available to obtain a hearing to contest the allegations.” Id. ¶ 40 Compare Herrada with Zilba v. City of Port Clinton, 924 F. Supp. 2d 867 (N.D. Ohio 2013)—a post-Herrada case in which a Sixth Circuit district court concluded that a motorist had not received adequate notice of his right to challenge his parking ticket. In Zilba, unlike in Herrada, Port Clinton “provided no phone number [to call for more information], no indication the ticket could be challenged, and no indication a recipient could request further information.” Id. at 884. Indeed, Port Clinton’s tickets “provide[d] no dates or indications a hearing [was] available.” Id. at 883. Based on the lack of any semblance of notice, the Zilba court concluded that the motorist’s due process rights had been violated. ¶ 41 Like the Sixth Circuit, we find it important that the parking tickets here both indicated that they could be challenged and provided a telephone number to call for more information. By including an explanation that they could be challenged, the parking tickets accomplished the core due process purpose of notice: providing adequate notice to the plaintiffs of their right to be heard. And the phone number meant that any plaintiff who was confused by the information contained on the parking tickets had a relatively easy way to acquire more information. See Horn v. City of Chicago, 860 F.2d 700, 705 (7th Cir. 1988) (holding that “notice of an opportunity for hearing was constitutionally 15 BIVENS v. SALT LAKE CITY Opinion of the Court sufficient” when “[a]ny doubts [about information contained on a parking ticket] could have been resolved by contacting the Department of Revenue at the number or address listed” on the parking ticket); In re Glob. Crossing Sec. & ERISA Litig., 225 F.R.D. 436, 450 (S.D.N.Y. 2004) (finding class notice constitutionally adequate in part because “the notice provided a toll-free telephone number to call for more information”). To the extent any of the plaintiffs were concerned that they would be penalized for seeking a hearing, the plaintiffs could have called the phone number on their parking tickets to ask about the possibility of a stay. But there is no allegation that any of them did so. Under the circumstances of this case, due process was not offended by the allegedly misleading statements about the schedule of penalties. ¶ 42 Finally, we do not see constitutional significance in the parking ticket’s omission of the right to challenge a parking ticket in justice court as opposed to before a hearing officer. The plaintiffs have not explained how they believed they were prejudiced by having to appear before a hearing officer instead of in justice court. Absent allegations that they reasonably decided to forfeit their right to be heard based on the requirement that they appear before a hearing officer, we cannot conclude that the fact that this forum was a hearing before a “hearing officer” posed a constitutional problem.4 4 The plaintiffs also passingly suggest that the City may have violated their due process rights because it located the hearing officers in the City’s Finance Division. They argue that “the City’s Finance Department hearing officers acted without statutory authority and thus lacked jurisdiction to hear parking notice challenges at all” because, according to the plaintiffs, all hearing officers must “serve as staff for the justice court”—they should not be located in the executive branch. Because the plaintiffs have failed to explain how locating the hearing officers in the Finance Division deprived them of due process, we do not consider this claim. Cf. Ward v. Vill. of Monroeville, 409 U.S. 57, 60–61 (1972) (To show that a hearing process poses a structural conflict of interest, the plaintiff must allege facts demonstrating that the process is such as to induce “the average man as a judge to forget the burden of proof required to convict the defendant, or which might (cont.) 16 Cite as: 2017 UT 67 Opinion of the Court
¶ 43 We likewise conclude that the Small Claims Court Information document provided constitutionally adequate notice. The plaintiffs argue that this document was constitutionally deficient for two reasons: (1) because it misled them into believing that their only recourse to contest a hearing officer’s adverse determination was to appear in small claims court—where, if they did not prevail, they would potentially be exposed to significant litigation costs and an adverse credit report; and (2) because it misled them into thinking that they could not argue that the City ordinances did not apply to their conduct of parking without paying at pay stations. We address each of these points in turn. ¶ 44 With respect to the plaintiffs’ first contention, we reiterate that the core requirement of adequate notice is that it apprise a litigant of her right to a hearing. See Nelson, 669 P.2d at 1211; see also Memphis Light, Gas & Water Div., 436 U.S. at 13. The Small Claims Court Information document satisfied this core requirement. And even though it may have overstated the consequences of failing to prevail in a challenge to a parking ticket, it did not do so in a way that undermined the plaintiffs’ right to a hearing. Cf. Williams v. Redflex Traffic Sys., Inc., 582 F.3d 617, 621 (6th Cir. 2009) (“[A] notice that offers the ticketed the choice between paying a $50 fine and having to pay $67.50 to challenge it offers no choice at all.”). Here, a motorist who chose to settle instead of proceeding to small claims court would have concluded that the likelihood of prevailing in small claims court was not high enough to justify the risk of losing—not that the choice to proceed to small claims court was, in and of itself, irrational. This regime does not violate due process. Importantly, the plaintiffs neither allege nor argue that requiring them to litigate their parking tickets in small claims court would have violated their due process rights. And if the plaintiffs accept that small claims court was a constitutionally adequate forum, it is hard to see how a notice that only apprises them of their right to litigate their parking infraction in that forum could have violated their due process rights. See Amanatullah v. Colorado Bd. of Med. Exam’rs, 187 F.3d 1160, 1164 (10th Cir. 1999) (due process clause requires lead him not to hold the balance nice, clear, and true between the state and the accused.” (citation omitted)). 17 BIVENS v. SALT LAKE CITY Opinion of the Court “an adequate forum” in which to pursue a claim (emphasis added)). ¶ 45 The plaintiffs’ second contention is that, even if the Small Claims Court Information document was sufficient to apprise them of their general right to a hearing, it was deficient as applied to this particular case because it told them they were only allowed to challenge their parking tickets on a limited number of legal grounds. Specifically, the document stated that [t]he judge will only hear evidence regarding your parking/civil notice and related violation . . . . If your complaint is regarding . . . whether or not you feel the ordinance is valid and should be changed . . . the courtroom is not the proper place for those types of complaints and will not be addressed by the judge. ¶ 46 According to the plaintiffs, this suggested that they could not press the argument that forms the basis of their class action. As the plaintiffs read this portion of the Small Claims Court Information document, it purports to bar them from arguing that their conduct of parking without paying at a pay station was not an infraction under the City Code. The plaintiffs argue that this created both a notice problem and, by “bar[ring] challenges to the validity of City ordinances and procedures, their implementation, and officers’ enforcement actions,” a problem with the hearing itself. ¶ 47 We are not persuaded that this portion of the Small Claims Court Information document is necessarily misleading. On a plausible reading of this portion of the document, it tells recipients that a small claims court judge will not hear evidence or arguments regarding “whether or not you feel the ordinance is valid”—i.e., it tells recipients that they may not challenge the statutory or constitutional legality of the City Code. But this is not what the plaintiffs claim they were barred from doing. Instead, the plaintiffs claim that the Small Claims Court Information document stated that they were barred from arguing that parking without paying at a multi-space pay station falls outside the ambit of the City’s parking ordinances and is therefore not an infraction. But this is more an argument that the plaintiffs did not violate the City Code than it is a challenge to the validity of the City’s parking ordinances. Indeed, the plaintiffs would presumably 18 Cite as: 2017 UT 67 Opinion of the Court agree that the City may validly make it an infraction not to pay for parking at a coin-operated, single-space parking meter. So we doubt the plaintiffs’ contention that the Small Claims Court Information document misleadingly suggested they could not argue that their conduct was not an infraction under the City Code. ¶ 48 More importantly, the plaintiffs have not alleged that they were, in fact, misled by the Small Claims Court Information document. Quite the contrary. According to the plaintiffs’ complaint, Mr. Arias did not receive this document, so he could not have been misled by it. See supra ¶ 8. Mr. Bivens, far from being misled by the document, actually argued to the small claims court that parking without paying at a pay station did not violate City Code. See supra ¶ 12. And Ms. Reed decided not to challenge her ticket in small claims court because she did not want to “risk[] the additional expenses outlined in the Small Claims Court Information document”—not because the Small Claims Court Information document misled her into thinking small claims court would not entertain a meritorious challenge to her ticket. Thus, even if there are circumstances in which it is possible to state a due process violation based on the information contained in the Small Claims Court Information document, the plaintiffs here have not alleged that the Small Claims Court Information document violated their right to adequate notice. See Miller v. Potter, 198 F. App’x 794, 796 (11th Cir. 2006) (“In order to show that the notice . . . violated his due process rights, Miller must show that (1) the notice was defective, and (2) he detrimentally relied upon that notice.”); Gilbert v. Shalala, 45 F.3d 1391, 1394 (10th Cir. 1995) (“[A] plaintiff must demonstrate reliance on the allegedly defective . . . notice[].”); Noah v. McDonald, 28 Vet. App. 120, 132 (2016) (“To prevail on his [procedural due process claim] . . . Mr. Noah must also demonstrate that he relied to his detriment on the misleading notice.”); see also Monarrez v. Utah Dep’t of Transp., 2016 UT 10, ¶ 44, 368 P.3d 846 (Although he alleged a breach of duty, “[the plaintiff] provides no allegations of any actions taken by the . . . [d]efendants . . . that caused him harm. Thus, dismissal was proper because the allegations in the complaint fail to state a claim . . . .”). ¶ 49 We conclude that the plaintiffs received constitutionally adequate notice of their right to a hearing, and that the plaintiffs 19 BIVENS v. SALT LAKE CITY Opinion of the Court have failed to allege that the notice misled them into thinking they could not raise the basic challenge to the City’s parking regime on which they have predicated their putative class action lawsuit. To be sure, the constitutional adequacy of notice is a fact-specific inquiry, and we will scrutinize notice more carefully as the stakes rise—because, as the private interest at stake becomes more and more important, so too does the cost of an erroneous decision. Cf. Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976) (adequacy of process requires courts to balance the private interest that will be affected, the risk of erroneous deprivation through the procedures used and the probable value of additional procedures, and the State’s interest).5 But a $15 parking fine is comparatively low stakes, and the plaintiffs have failed to state a claim that the notices here did not adequately apprise them of their right to a hearing on their objections. The plaintiffs have therefore failed to state a claim for constitutionally inadequate notice under article I, section 7 of the Utah Constitution.