Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 2006

Jones v. Flowers

547 U.S. 220 | 126 S. Ct. 1708 | 164 L. Ed. 2d 415 | 2006 U.S. LEXIS 3451

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Takeaway

In short, this case holds that once the government learns its mailed tax-sale notice failed, due process requires it to take a practicable, reasonable follow-up step before taking and selling the owner's property.

Background

Gary Jones owned a house in Little Rock, Arkansas. After he paid off his mortgage in 1997, his property taxes went unpaid. Arkansas certified the property as tax-delinquent. In 2000, the Commissioner of State Lands sent Jones a certified letter at the house address, notifying him of the delinquency and his right to redeem before a tax sale. The letter was returned unopened and marked “unclaimed.”

Two years later, shortly before the scheduled tax sale, the State published notice in a local newspaper. No one bid at the public sale, allowing the State to negotiate a private sale. After Linda Flowers offered to buy the property, the Commissioner sent a second certified letter to the same address. That letter too was returned “unclaimed.” Flowers then bought the house, stipulated to be worth $80,000, for $21,042.15. Jones learned of the sale only after his daughter, who was at the house, received an unlawful-detainer notice after the redemption period expired.

Jones sued the Commissioner and Flowers in Arkansas state court, alleging that the sale deprived him of property without due process. The trial court granted summary judgment for the Commissioner and Flowers, holding that the Arkansas statutory notice procedure was constitutional. The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed, reasoning that certified-mail notice satisfied due process even though Jones did not actually receive it. The United States Supreme Court granted review to resolve disagreement among lower courts about whether the government must take further steps after mailed tax-sale notice is returned undelivered.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether due process requires the State to take additional reasonable steps to notify a property owner before a tax sale when certified-mail notice is returned unclaimed.

Holding

Yes. When mailed notice of a tax sale is returned unclaimed, the State must take additional reasonable steps to attempt notice before selling the property, if practicable to do so.

Reasoning

The Due Process Clause does not require actual notice. It requires notice reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to inform interested persons of the pending action and give them an opportunity to object. Mailing notice to an owner's recorded address is ordinarily a constitutionally reasonable method because it is generally likely to reach the owner.

But circumstances changed once both certified letters were returned unclaimed. The State then had concrete information, before it took Jones's house, indicating that its chosen method had not reached him. Under Mullane's standard, a person genuinely trying to inform an owner about the impending loss of a home would not simply do nothing after learning that the notice had failed.

The Court treated the State's knowledge of failed delivery as a relevant circumstance in judging the adequacy of notice. This approach was consistent with Robinson v. Hanrahan and Covey v. Town of Somers, where notice was inadequate because the government possessed particular information showing that ordinary notice procedures would not effectively reach the intended recipient. It made no constitutional difference that Arkansas learned this information after sending the initial notice but before taking the property.

Jones's own failures did not eliminate the State's constitutional duty. His statutory obligation to keep his address current did support the reasonableness of sending the initial letter to the property address, but it did not authorize the State to ignore evidence that the letter had not been received. Likewise, knowledge that unpaid taxes can lead to a tax sale is not equivalent to notice that a sale is actually pending.

The Court also rejected the argument that the occupant of the home could be presumed to alert Jones. An occupant is not automatically the owner's agent for all purposes, and an occupant who sees a certified-mail notice addressed to the owner may have no reason to infer that the property is about to be sold for unpaid taxes.

Issue #2

Whether Arkansas had practicable additional measures available after its certified-mail notices were returned unclaimed.

Holding

Yes. Several relatively simple additional measures were available, so Arkansas could not constitutionally proceed without further effort.

Reasoning

The returned “unclaimed” letter suggested either that Jones still lived at the house but did not retrieve certified mail, or that he had moved. A reasonable response could have been to resend the notice by regular mail. Unlike certified mail, regular mail can be left at the address without requiring someone to be present to sign for it, and it could therefore reach either Jones or another occupant who might alert him.

The State could also have posted notice on the front door or sent otherwise undeliverable mail addressed to “occupant.” Those measures would increase the chance that someone living at the property would learn of the impending sale. The facts demonstrated that occupants could provide an effective route to Jones: his daughter ultimately informed him after receiving the eviction-related notice.

Due process did not require Arkansas to conduct an open-ended search through phone books, tax rolls, or other databases to locate Jones. A return marked “unclaimed” did not necessarily establish that the address was wrong, and an extensive search would impose substantially greater burdens than resending mail, posting notice, or notifying the occupant.

Newspaper publication did not cure the defect. Publication is generally sufficient only when more direct and practical notice is unavailable. Because Arkansas could practicably have taken more effective steps after the mail was returned, a small newspaper advertisement was not constitutionally adequate notice in these circumstances.

The Court did not prescribe a single mandatory procedure for every State. It held only that, in these circumstances, Arkansas had to take some reasonable additional step before extinguishing Jones's property interest. The judgment for the Commissioner and Flowers was reversed and the case was remanded.

Dissents

Justice Thomas

Reasoning

Justice Thomas, joined by Justices Scalia and Kennedy, argued that Arkansas satisfied due process by sending certified mail to the address Jones himself had provided, then publishing notice of the sale. Under Mullane and Dusenbery, the constitutional question is whether the State selected a method reasonably calculated to give notice when it acted—not whether the method ultimately produced actual notice. Certified mail to a taxpayer's recorded address, in his view, plainly met that standard.

The dissent emphasized that Jones had a statutory duty both to pay his taxes and to keep the State informed of any address change. The State could reasonably assume that a property owner would protect his own interests by maintaining a current address or arranging for someone at the property to notify him of threats to his ownership. The State should not have to correct a problem created by the delinquent owner's failure to do so.

Justice Thomas distinguished Robinson and Covey. In those cases, the government knew before sending notice that the recipient was incarcerated or incompetent, and therefore knew its ordinary procedure would fail. Here, the later return of letters marked “unclaimed” did not establish that Jones had moved; he might simply have failed or refused to collect his mail. Arkansas thus lacked the specific, preexisting knowledge that made notice inadequate in those earlier cases.

The dissent viewed the majority's rule as an impermissible move toward requiring actual notice. Once a returned letter triggers a duty to try another method, the State must repeatedly decide whether a new doubt about delivery requires still another effort. That inquiry has no clear stopping point and departs from the established rule that due process does not demand heroic efforts or the most effective conceivable form of notice.

Finally, Justice Thomas challenged the practicality and likely effectiveness of the majority's proposed alternatives. Regular mail creates no reliable delivery record; posting can be burdensome because Arkansas records property by legal description rather than street address and can be unreliable because notices may be removed; and mail addressed to an occupant may be discarded. In his view, the Constitution did not compel those added costs and uncertainties, so he would have affirmed the Arkansas Supreme Court.