407 U.S. (1972)
MR. JUSTICE STEwART delivered the
opinion of the Court.
We here review the decisions
of two three-judge federal District Courts that upheld the constitutionality of
Florida and Pennsylvania laws authorizing the summary seizure of goods or
chattels in a person's possession under a writ of replevin. Both statutes
provide for the issuance of writs ordering state agents to seize a person's
possessions, simply upon the ex parte application of any other person who
claims a right to them and posts a security bond. Neither statute provides for
notice to be given to the possessor of the property, and neither statute gives
the possessor an opportunity to challenge the seizure at any kind of prior
hearing. .
The appellant in No. 5039,
Margarita Fuentes, is a resident of Florida. She purchased a gas stove and
service policy from the Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. (Firestone) under a
conditional sales contract calling for monthly payments over a period of time.
A few months later, she purchased a stereophonic phonograph from the same
company under the same sort of contract. The total cost of the stove and stereo
was about $500, plus an additional financing charge of over $100. Under the
contracts, Firestone retained title to the merchandise, but Mrs. Fuentes was
entitled to possession unless and until she should default on her installment
payments.
For more than a year, Mrs.
Fuentes made her installment payments. But then, with only about $200 remaining
to be paid, a dispute developed between her and Firestone over the servicing of
the stove. Firestone instituted an action in a small-claims court for
repossession of both the stove and the stereo, claiming that Mrs. Fuentes had
refused to make her remaining payments. Simultaneously with the filing of that
action and before Mrs. Fuentes had even received a summons to answer its
complaint, Firestone obtained a writ of replevin ordering a sheriff to seize
the disputed goods at once.
In conformance with Florida
procedure, Firestone had only to fill in the blanks on the appropriate form
documents and submit them to the clerk of the small-claims court. The clerk
signed and stamped the documents and issued a writ of replevin. Later the same
day, a local deputy sheriff and an agent of Firestone went to Mrs. Fuentes'
home and seized the stove and stereo.
Shortly thereafter, Mrs.
Fuentes instituted the present action in a federal district court, challenging
the constitutionality of the Florida prejudgment replevin procedures under the
Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. She sought declaratory and
injunctive relief against continued enforcement of the procedural provisions of
the state statutes that authorize prejudgment replevin.
For more than a century the
central meaning of procedural due process has been clear: "Parties whose
rights are to be affected are entitled to be heard; and in order that they may
enjoy that right they must first be notified." It is equally fundamental
that the right to notice and an opportunity to be heard "must be granted
at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner."
The primary question in the
present cases is whether these state statutes are constitutionally defective in
failing to provide for hearings "at a meaningful time." The Florida
replevin process guarantees an opportunity for a hearing after the seizure of
goods, and the Pennsylvania process allows a postseizure hearing if the
aggrieved party shoulders the burden of initiating one. But neither the Florida
nor the Pennsylvania statute provides for notice or an opportunity to be heard
before the seizure. The issue is whether procedural due process in the context
of these cases requires an opportunity for a hearing before the State
authorizes its agents to seize property in the possession of a person upon the
application of another.
The
constitutional right to be heard is a basic aspect of the duty of government to
follow a fair process of decision-making when it acts to deprive a person of
his possessions. The purpose of this requirement is not only to ensure abstract
fair play to the individual. Its purpose, more particularly, is to protect his
use and possession of property from arbitrary encroachment to minimize
substantively unfair or mistaken deprivations of property, a danger that is especially
great when the State seizes goods simply upon the application of and for the
benefit of a private party. So viewed, the prohibition against the deprivation
of property without due process of law reflects the high value, embedded in our
constitutional and political history, that we place on a person's right to
enjoy what is his, free of governmental interference
The requirement of notice and
an opportunity to be heard raises no impenetrable barrier to the taking of a
person's possessions. But the fair process of decision-making that it
guarantees works, by itself, to protect against arbitrary deprivation of
property. For when a person has an opportunity to speak up in his own defense,
and when the State must listen to what he has to say, substantively unfair and
simply mistaken deprivations of property interests can be prevented. It has
long been recognized that "fairness can rarely be obtained by secret,
one-sided determination of facts decisive of rights . . . . [And n]o better
instrument has been devised for arriving at truth than to give a person in
jeopardy of serious loss notice of the case against him and opportunity to meet
it."
If the right to notice and a
hearing is to serve its full purpose, then, it is clear that it must be granted
at a time when the deprivation can still be prevented. At a later hearing, an
individual's possessions can be returned to him if they were unfairly or
mistakenly taken in the first place. Damages may even be awarded to him for the
wrongful deprivation. But no later hearing and no damage award can undo the
fact that the arbitrary taking that was subject to the right of procedural due
process has already occurred. "This Court has not . . . embraced the
general proposition that a wrong may be done if it can be undone."
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.
For the foregoing reasons,
the judgments of the District Courts are vacated and these cases are remanded
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.