Court Opinion

ID: 9610687
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:45:20.37879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:00:09.095805
License: Public Domain

Gunter, Justice,
concurring.
It is with great uncertainty that I concur in the judgment of the court in this case, for I perceive that we are again in the Sniadach, Fuentes, W. T. Grant, and North Georgia Finishing thicket.
I concede that the Georgia attachment statutes do not provide for notice and a hearing prior to "seizure,” "deprivation,” "sequestration,” or "impoundment.” Georgia’s prejudgment garnishment statute (not applicable to wages) did not provide for notice and a hearing "prior to impoundment,” and it was declared unconstitutional by a vote of 6-3 by the Supreme Court of the United States. North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., decided January 22, 1975. My reading of the opinions in that case indicates to me that four members of the Supreme Court stand rigidly on the proposition that a hearing must be held prior to the deprivation of the property right. Five members of the *709Supreme Court of the United States seem to me to hold that such a prior hearing is not necessary in some cases provided a reasonably timely hearing is conducted after the deprivation.
Sniadach and Fuentes said plainly to me that a seizure of property, effected by or with the aid of the state, without a hearing prior to the seizure did not comport with constitutional due process requirements.
However, when this court decided North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., I did not believe that a "prior hearing” was absolutely necessary in all circumstances, because to give prior notice and a prior hearing in a garnishment action where the debtor was a corporation merely permitted the debtor to check the funds out of the bank account sought to be impounded. A requirement of prior notice and a prior hearing in such a situation rendered garnishment, for all practical purposes, totally worthless.
Fuentes said: "But it is now well settled that a temporary, nonfinal deprivation of property is nonetheless a 'deprivation’ in the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment. Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U. S. 337; Bell v. Burson, 402 U. S. 535. Both Sniadach and Bell involved takings of property pending a final judgment in an underlying dispute. In both cases, the challenged statutes included recovery provisions, allowing the defendants to post security to quickly regain the property taken from them. Yet the court firmly held that these were deprivations of property that had to be preceded by a fair hearing.” P. 84. Again: "This reading of Sniadach and Goldberg reflects the premise that those cases marked a radical departure from established principles of procedural due process. They did not. Both decisions were in the mainstream of past cases; having little or nothing to do with the absolute 'necessities’ of life but establishing that due process requires an opportunity for a hearing before a deprivation of the property takes effect.” P. 88. Again: "We hold that the Florida and Pennsylvania prejudgment replevin provisions work a deprivation of property without due process of law insofar as they deny the right to a prior opportunity to be heard before chattels are taken from their possessor.” P. 96.
*710Then came Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., and, to me, it clearly held that a post-sequestration hearing did comport with due process. The majority opinion stated: "Petitioner asserts that his right to a hearing before his possession is in any way disturbed is nonetheless mandated by a long line of cases in this court, culminating in Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U. S. 337 [89 SC 1820, 23 LE2d 349] (1969), and Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67 [92 SC 1983, 32 LE2d 556] (1972). The pre-Sniadach cases are said by petitioner to hold that 'the opportunity to be heard must precede any actual deprivation of private property.’ Their import, however, is not so clear as petitioner would have it: they merely stand for the proposition that a hearing must be had before one is finally deprived of his property and do not deal at all with the need for a pre-termination hearing where a full and immediate post-termination hearing is provided. The usual rule has been '[w]here only property rights are involved, postponement of the judicial enquiry is not a denial of due process, if the opportunity given for ultimate judicial determination of liability is adequate.”
In his concurring opinion in W. T. Grant, Mr. Justice Powell said that the court had withdrawn significantly from the principle that due process requires an adversary hearing prior to the deprivation. The four dissenters, as I read what they said, stuck by the "prior hearing” requirement of Fuentes.
North Georgia Finishing indicates to me that there can be a post-seizure hearing that will comport with due process even though the statute in that case did not so specifically provide. I had always thought, and perhaps this was my shortcoming, that a debtor could always intervene in a garnishment action and move for a dissolution hearing to submit evidence to show that the garnishment was legally insufficient. See Code Ann. §§ 81A-181, 81 A-124 (a).
In any event, I still do not know whether a preseizure hearing is required, or if a post-seizure hearing, reasonably held in a timely manner, will pass muster.
In the light of Sniadach, Fuentes, W. T. Grant, and North Georgia Finishing this member of the Supreme *711Court of Georgia still "acts largely in the dark.” Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. p. 93.
Mr. Justice Powell in W. T. Grant and North Georgia Finishing has reported the demise of the "pre-seizure hearing requirement in all circumstances” principle so clearly enunciated in Fuentes, but Mr. Justice Stewart has said, in Mark Twain fashion, that the report of the demise of this principle is greatly exaggerated. See the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Stewart in North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc.
Since there was a post-seizure hearing in this case, held in a timely and reasonable manner, I conclude that the appellant was not deprived of due process of law. I concur in the judgment of affirmance.