Court Opinion

ID: 9425913
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:16:11.478144+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:58.308193
License: Public Domain

*609Mr. Justice Powell,
concurring in the judgment.
I join in the Court’s judgment, but I cannot concur in the opinion as I think it sweeps more broadly than is necessary and appears to resuscitate Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67 (1972). Only last term in Mitchell v. W. T. Grant, Co. 416 U. S. 600 (1974), the Court significantly narrowed the precedential scope of Fuentes. In my concurrence in Mitchell, I noted:
“The Court’s decision today withdraws significantly from the full reach of [Fuentes’] principle, and to this extent I think it fair to say that the Fuentes opinion is overruled.” 416 U. S., at 623 (Powell, J., concurring).
Three dissenting Justices, including the author of Fuentes, went further in their description of the impact of Mitchell:
“[T]he Court today has unmistakably overruled a considered decision of this Court that is barely two years old, without pointing to any change . . . that might justify this total disregard of stare decisis.” 416 U. S., at 635 (Stewart, J., joined by Douglas and Marshall, JJ., dissenting).
The Court’s opinion in this case, relying substantially on Fuentes, suggests that that decision will again be read as calling into question much of the previously settled law governing commercial transactions. I continue to doubt whether Fuentes strikes a proper balance, especially in cases where the creditor’s interest in the property may be as significant or even greater than that of the debtor. Nor do I find it necessary to relegate Mitchell to its narrow factual setting in order to determine that the Georgia garnishment statutes fail to satisfy the requirements of procedural due process.
As we observed in Mitchell, the traditional view of procedural due process had been that “'[wjhere only *610property rights are involved, mere postponement of the judicial enquiry is not a denial of due process, if the opportunity given for ultimate judicial determination of liability is adequate.’ ” Id., at 611, quoting Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U. S. 589, 596-597 (1931). Consistent with this view, the Court in the past unanimously approved prejudgment attachment liens similar to those at issue in this case. McKay v. McInnes, 279 U. S. 820 (1929); Coffin Bros. v. Bennett, 277 U. S. 29 (1928); Ownbey v. Morgan, 256 U. S. 94 (1921). See generally Mitchell, supra, at 613-614. But the recent expansion of concepts of procedural due process requires a more careful assessment of the nature of the governmental function served by the challenged procedure and of the costs the procedure exacts of private interests. See, e. g., Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254, 263-266 (1970); Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U. S. 886, 895 (1961). Under this analysis, the Georgia provisions cannot stand.
Garnishment and attachment remedies afford the actual or potential judgment creditor a means of assuring, under appropriate circumstances, that the debtor will not remove from the jurisdiction, encumber, or otherwise dispose of certain assets then available to satisfy the creditor’s claim.1 Garnishment may have a seriously adverse impact on the debtor, depriving him of the use of his assets during the period that it applies. But this fact alone does not give rise to constitutional objection. The State’s legitimate interest in facilitating creditor recovery through the provision of garnishment remedies has never been seriously questioned.
*611Pregarnishment notice and a prior hearing have not been constitutionally mandated in the past. Despite the ambiguity engendered by the Court’s reliance on Fuentes, I do not interpret its opinion today as imposing these requirements for the future.2 Such restrictions, antithetical to the very purpose of the remedy, would leave little efficacy to the garnishment and attachment laws of the 50 States.
In my view, procedural due process would be satisfied where state law requires that the garnishment be preceded by the garnishor’s provision of adequate security and by his establishment before a neutral officer3 of a factual basis of the need to resort to the remedy as a means of preventing removal or dissipation of assets required to satisfy the claim. Due process further requires that the State afford an opportunity for a prompt post-garnishment judicial hearing in which the garnishor has *612the burden of showing probable cause to believe there is a need to continue the garnishment for a sufficient period of time to allow proof and satisfaction of the alleged debt. Since the garnished assets may bear no relation to the controversy giving rise to the alleged debt, the State also should provide the debtor an opportunity to free those assets by posting adequate security in their place.
The Georgia provisions fall short of these requirements. Garnishment may issue on the basis of a simple and conclusory affidavit that , the garnishor has reason to apprehend the loss of money allegedly owed. See Ga. Code Ann. § 46-101, set forth in full in the Court's opinion, ante, at 602 n. 1. As shown by the affidavit filed in this case, see ante, at 604 n. 2, an unrevealing assertion of apprehension of loss suffices to invoke the issuance of garnishment.4 This is insufficient to enable a neutral officer to make even the most superficial preliminary assessment of the creditor’s asserted need.5
*613The most compelling deficiency in the Georgia procedure is its failure to provide a prompt and adequate postgarnishment hearing. Under Georgia law, garnishment is a separate proceeding between the garnishor and the garnishee. The debtor is not a party and can intervene only by filing a dissolution bond and substituting himself for the garnishee. Leake v. Tyner, 112 Ga. 919, 38 S. E. 343 (1901); Powell v. Powell, 95 Ga. App. 122, 97 S. E. 2d 193 (1957). As noted above, the issuance of the garnishment may impose serious hardship on the debtor. In this context, due process precludes imposing the additional burden of conditioning the debtor’s ability to question the validity of its issuance or continuation on the filing of a bond. Moreover, the Georgia statute contains no provision enabling the debtor to obtain prompt dissolution of the garnishment upon a showing of fact,6 nor any indication that the garnishor bears the burden of proving entitlement to the garnishment.
I consider the combination of these deficiencies to be fatal to the Georgia statute. Quite simply, the Georgia *614provisions fail to afford fundamental fairness in their accommodation of the respective interests of creditor and debtor. For these reasons, I join in the judgment of the Court.

 Garnishment and attachment remedies also serve to insure that the State will retain jurisdiction to adjudicate the underlying controversy. The advent of the more liberal interpretation of the States’ power to exert jurisdiction over nonresidents who are not present in the State, International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U. S. 310 (1945), diminishes the importance of this function.

 The Court also cites Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U. S. 337 (1969), which established an exception for garnishment of an individual’s wages. In such cases, the Due Process Clause requires notice and a hearing prior to application of the garnishment remedy. As the opinion itself indicates, however, the Sniadach rule is limited to wages, “a specialized type of property presenting distinct problems in our economic system.” Id., at 340. The Court did not purport to impose requirements of pregarnishment notice and hearing in other instances. Ibid. I therefore do not consider Sniadach to be more than peripherally relevant to the present case.

 1 am not in accord with the Court’s suggestion that the Due Process Clause might require that a judicial officer issue the writ of garnishment. ' The basic protection required for the debtor is the assurance of a prompt postgarnishment hearing before a judge. Such a hearing affords an opportunity to rectify any error in the initial decision to issue the garnishment. When combined with the availability of the garnishor’s bond to compensate for any harm caused, the possibility of prompt correction of possible error suffices to satisfy the requirements of procedural due process in this context. It thus should be sufficient for a clerk or other officer of the court to issue the original writ upon the filing of a proper affidavit.

 The Georgia courts have not amplified the statutory affidavit requirement through the process of judicial construction. See Wilson v. Fulton Metal Bed Mfg. Co., 88 Ga. App. 884, 886, 78 S. E. 2d 360, 362 (1953).

 Since garnishment can issue in Georgia only in cases in which suit is pending or judgment has been rendered, see Ga. Code Ann. §46-101, the issuing officer need not preliminarily inquire into the allegation of the existence of a debt. Nor do I contemplate that the initial showing of probable inability to collect the debt absent the issuance of the garnishment need be elaborate.
The facts of this case serve to illustrate the point. From the record and oral argument, it appears that the respondent feared that the only accessible and unencumbered assets of North Georgia Finishing were its bank accounts. At oral argument, counsel for petitioner indicated that North Georgia Finishing’s holdings in real estate and tangible property in the State of Georgia were encumbered by mortgages and factoring contracts. It thus appears that respondent’s apprehension of eventual inability to recover the debt *613may well have been entirely sufficient to justify the garnishment for the brief period required to conduct the post-garnishment hearing.
Bank accounts are readily susceptible to almost immediate transfer or dissipation, and this occurrence is often a likelihood where the debtor is a foreign corporation or a nonresident of the State. An affidavit in support of the garnishment or attachment of a nonresident’s bank account would normally be sufficient for the writ if it averred that other less transitory assets were not available within the State to satisfy any prospective judgment.

 Petitioner asserts, without contradiction by the respondent, that Georgia law does not authorize the alleged debtor to question the facts contained in the garnishor’s affidavit or to make a contrary submission of fact indicating that the garnishor’s apprehension of possible loss is misconceived or is insufficient to warrant the continuation of the writ of garnishment.