Court Opinion

ID: 9559876
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:37:21.314079+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:49.822785
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J., Dissenting.
The United States Constitution prohibits government from depriving an individual of property without due process of law. This guarantee means that before the government may take property, it must provide the property owner with a right to a hearing on the proposed deprivation, and advance notice of that hearing. In this case, the majority holds that the state may seize and destroy a billboard, although the record unequivocally shows that the owner of the billboard was never given any notice that he had a right to a hearing.
I dissent. Because the billboard owner received no notice informing him that he was entitled to contest the state’s determination that his property *1168would be destroyed, his constitutional right to due process was violated. The majority’s approach is contrary to controlling precedent of the United States Supreme Court, and its result is offensive to fundamental fairness.
Facts1
Richard Traverso, doing business as Adco Outdoor Advertising, owned two off-premises billboards in Cotati. The billboards were mounted on a “V” type display structure. Permits were first granted for the billboards by the California Department of Transportation (hereafter Caltrans) in 1959, and in 1967 the billboards were classified as legal but nonconforming displays under the Outdoor Advertising Act, Business and Professions Code section 5200 et seq. (hereafter the Act).2 The billboards were nonconforming because they were not located in an area zoned primarily for business or industry. In February 1984, the billboard structure fell down due to causes that are disputed. On February 10, 1984, Caltrans sent a letter to Traverso stating that the billboard structure “has been removed” and that unless he responded within 30 days his permit would be canceled. It is disputed whether Traverso responded; in any event, Caltrans went ahead and canceled the permits on April 30, 1984. Permits are ordinarily valid for one year, after which they lapse and the sign owner must apply for a renewal for the next year. Traverse’s permits would have expired in December 1984 had they not been cancelled by Caltrans. Traverso did not attempt to renew the permits for 1985 or 1986.
In June 1986, Traverso began to rebuild the billboard. Shortly thereafter, on June 11, 1986, Caltrans placed a notice on the billboard, citing the owner for asserted violations of the Act. In August 1987, after repeated communications between the parties, Caltrans began to physically remove the display, and Traverso filed this lawsuit, challenging the constitutionality of section 5463, under which Caltrans claimed authority to summarily remove and destroy the billboard structure.
The trial court issued a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction enjoining Caltrans from removing the display, but later granted summary judgment for Caltrans. Traverso appealed, and in a published opinion the Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s judgment in favor of Caltrans, determining that section 5463 is unconstitutional because it fails to *1169afford owners of advertising displays any opportunity for a hearing when Caltrans removes a billboard or revokes a permit for a billboard. This court then granted Caltrans’s petition for review. Enforcement of the order granting summary judgment and dissolving the preliminary injunction has been stayed pending resolution of this case on appeal.
Discussion
In this case, Caltrans proceeded under the authority of section 5463, which provides, in pertinent part:
“The director may revoke any license or permit for the failure to comply with the provisions of this chapter and may remove and destroy any advertising display placed or maintained in violation of this chapter after 10 days’ written notice posted on such structure or sign and a copy forwarded by mail to the display owner at his [or her] last known address.”
The majority concludes that billboard permits as well as billboard structures are property interests protected by the due process guarantee. I agree. The majority also concludes that section 5463 is not invalid on its face for failure to provide a hearing, because this court may “imply” a hearing requirement from the statute’s notice requirement. I express no view on this question; it is unnecessary to the resolution of this case because, regardless of whether a hearing requirement may properly be “implied” in section 5463, Caltrans acted unconstitutionally in failing to provide adequate notice of a hearing to Traverso.
The relevant principles are well established. Although the process due an individual under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution varies with the nature of the case, procedural due process requires, at a minimum, notice and an opportunity to be heard before a person may be permanently deprived of a property interest. (E.g., Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill (1985) 470 U.S. 532, 542 [84 L.Ed.2d 494, 503-504, 105 S.Ct. 1487]; Coleman v. Department of Personnel Administration (1991) 52 Cal.3d 1102, 1108 [278 Cal.Rptr. 346, 805 P.2d 300].)
“An elementary and fundamental requirement of due process in any proceeding ... is notice reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an *1170opportunity to present their objections. [Citations.] The notice must be of such nature as reasonably to convey the required information [citation], and it must afford a reasonable time for those interested to make their appearance [citations].” (Mullane v. Central Hanover Tr. Co. (1950) 339 U.S. 306, 314 [94 L.Ed. 865, 873, 70 S.Ct. 652] (italics added); accord, e.g., Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division v. Craft (1978) 436 U.S. 1, 13, 22 [56 L.Ed.2d 30, 41-42, 46-47, 98 S.Ct. 1554][holding that public utility’s procedure for terminating service violated due process because notice failed to inform customers of procedures for contesting terminations]; Minor v. Municipal Court (1990) 219 Cal.App.3d 1541, 1550-1551 [268 Cal.Rptr. 919] [holding that notice that failed to inform claimant of statutory procedure to set aside declaration of forfeiture violated due process]; People v. Swink (1984) 150 Cal.App.3d 1076, 1081 [198 Cal.Rptr. 290] [same]; see Brock v. Roadway Express, Inc. (1987) 481 U.S. 252, 264 [95 L.Ed.2d 239, 251-252, 107 S.Ct. 1740].)
In this case, the notice provided to Traverso fails to meet the high court’s requirements. A copy of the notice, labeled as “Exhibit B” in the trial court and dated June 11, 1986, is attached as an appendix to this dissent. It reads, in pertinent part:
“You are hereby notified that the display described above is in violation of the Outdoor Advertising Act, and may be removed and destroyed if no action toward legalizing it is taken prior to 7-17-86. To avoid misunderstanding, acknowledge and comply promptly. Do not remove citation from display or return this notice until violation has been corrected.”
Nothing in this notice was “reasonably calculated” to apprise Traverso of “the availability of an administrative procedure to consider” its complaint of an erroneous determination by Caltrans (Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division, supra, 436 U.S. at p. 22 [56 L.Ed.2d at pp. 46-47]; see Petrillo v. Bay Area Rapid Transit Dist. (1988) 197 Cal.App.3d 798, 809 [243 Cal.Rptr. 74]). Indeed, nothing in the notice indicated that Traverso had any choice other than to (1) comply with the bureaucracy’s demands to “correct” the alleged violations, or (2) stand by and watch idly as Caltrans removed and destroyed his billboard.
In a footnote, the majority responds to this dissent by claiming that the notice requirement of the due process clause was satisfied because Caltrans had exchanged “letters and other communications” with Traverso before the *1171notice of June 11, 1986, and thus Traverso had received all the notice to which he was constitutionally entitled. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 1168, fn. 1.)
The majority’s argument is defective in two elementary ways. First, none of the communications before or after June 11, 1986, informed Traverso that he had the right to a hearing, as the high court has consistently required. (Mullane v. Central Hanover Tr. Co., supra, 339 U.S. at p. 314 [94 L.Ed. at p. 873]; Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division v. Craft, supra, 436 U.S. at pp. 13, 22 [56 L.Ed.2d at pp. 41, 46-47].) Second, as this court has made unequivocally clear, in assessing a procedural due process challenge, “we must look to the procedure dictated by the terms of the ordinance, and not to informal practices implemented at the discretion of [government] administrators. . . . ““It is not enough that the owners may by chance have had notice, or that they may as a matter of favor have a hearing. The law must require notice to them, and give them a right to a hearing, and an opportunity to be heard.’ ” ’ [Citations.]” (Kash Enterprises, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles (1977) 19 Cal.3d 294, 307, fn. 7 [138 Cal.Rptr. 53, 562 P.2d 1302].)
Fortunately for property owners in this country, the United States Supreme Court has consistently adhered to the requirement that government provide property owners notice of their opportunity to be heard before it deprives them of their property. (See, e.g., United States v. James Daniel Good Real Property (1993)_U.S._[126 L.Ed.2d 490, 114 S.Ct. 492].) Unfortunately for Traverso, this court has unaccountably denied him the right to adequate notice that he could contest the state’s determination that his billboard was in violation of the Act.
“The purpose of notice under the Due Process Clause is to. apprise the affected individual of, and permit adequate preparation for, an impending ‘hearing.’ ” (Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division, supra, 436 U.S. at p. 14 [56 L.Ed.2d at p. 42].) The notice that Traverso received denied him due process because it failed to serve that purpose.
Conclusion
Under the majority’s interpretation of the due process clause, government notice to a property owner that his or her property is about to be seized and destroyed satisfies the federal Constitution even if the property owner is never informed he or she has the right to be heard on the legality of the *1172government’s action. This violates basic principles of fairness. An opportunity to be heard, standing alone, is of little value to property owners who, like Traverso, learn about it only when a court has announced that they will lose their property because they failed to demand the hearing they were never informed they could have.
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
The petition of both respondent and appellant for a rehearing was denied March 3, 1994, and the opinion was modified to read as printed above. Kennard, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.
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This statement of facts is adapted from the opinion of the Court of Appeal.

All further unlabeled statutory references are to the Business and Professions Code.