Jones v. Flowers, 547 U.S. 220 (2006), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the due process requirement that a state give notice to an owner before selling his property to satisfy his unpaid taxes. The Court ruled, 5-3,The ninth justice on the Court, Samuel Alito, did not participate, because he was confirmed fourteen days after the case was heard for argument. that after a mailed notice was returned unclaimed, a state was required by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to take additional reasonable steps to notify the owner before the sale could proceed.Though this case was decided under the Fourteenth Amendment, which only applies to the states, the Court interprets its due process protections the same as those under the Fifth Amendment, which applies to the federal government. The Court's ruling will accordingly be extended to actions taken by the federal government as well. The Court's opinion was delivered by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, his fourth majority opinion after his confirmation to the Court in 2005 and his first to provoke any dissenting opinions.Borchers, Patrick J. "Jones v. Flowers: An Essay on a Unified Theory of Procedural Due Process." Creighton Law Review 40.2 (2007): 343-352.Myers, C. Jordan. "Learning to Live with Jones v. Flowers: A" New Wrinkle" for an Old Standard." Emory Law Journal 57.2 (2008): 463.
The Court had last addressed the issue of notice in Dusenbery v. United States,. The majority opinion in Dusenbery was written by the previous chief justice, William Rehnquist. which held that the government need only take steps reasonably calculated to provide notice even if actual notice is not achieved. The four justices who dissented in Dusenbery formed the majority with Roberts in Jones v. Flowers, distinguishing the prior case on the basis that the government in Dusenbery did not know that its method of notice had failed before the taking occurred. Justice Clarence Thomas, in dissent, believed the Court was instead undermining Dusenbery, which he argued implicitly dictated a result contrary to the majority's decision.
Background Tax delinquency and sale In 1967, Gary Jones purchased a house in Little Rock, Arkansas, in which he lived with his wife until they separated in 1993. Jones then moved into an apartment in Little Rock, and his wife continued to live in the house. Jones paid his mortgage each month for 30 years, and the mortgage company paid Jones' property taxes. However, after Jones paid off his mortgage in 1997, his wife failed to pay the property taxes, and the property was certified as delinquent.
In April 2000, Mark Wilcox, the Arkansas Commissioner of State Lands, attempted to notify Jones of his tax delinquency, and his right to redeem the property, by mailing a certified letter to Jones at the house.See Ark. Code § 26-37-301 (1997). The packet of information stated that unless Jones redeemed the property, it would be subject to public sale two years later on April 17, 2002. Nobody was home to sign for the letter, and nobody appeared at the post office to retrieve the letter within the next 15 days. The post office returned the unopened packet to the Commissioner marked "unclaimed."
Two years later, and just a few weeks before the public sale, the Commissioner published a notice of public sale in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. No bids were submitted, which permitted the State to negotiate a private sale of the property.See Ark. Code § 26-37-202(b). Several months later, Linda Flowers submitted a purchase offer. The Commissioner mailed another certified letter to Jones at the house, attempting to notify him that his house would be sold to Flowers if he did not pay his taxes. Like the first letter, the second was also returned to the Commissioner marked "unclaimed." Flowers subsequently purchased the house at approximately a quarter of its fair market value. Immediately after the 30-day period for postsale redemption passed,See Ark. Code § 26-37-202(e). Flowers had an unlawful detainer notice delivered to the property. The notice was served on Jones' daughter, who contacted Jones and notified him of the unpaid taxes and the tax sale.
State court proceedings Jones filed a lawsuit in Pulaski County Circuit Court against the Commissioner and Flowers, alleging that the Commissioner's failure to provide notice of the tax sale and of Jones' right to redeem resulted in the taking of his property without due process.Jones v. Flowers, No. CIV2003-8565. Judge Timothy Davis Fox presided. The Commissioner and Flowers moved for summary judgment on the ground that the two unclaimed letters sent by the Commissioner were a constitutionally adequate attempt at notice, and Jones filed a cross-motion for summary judgment. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the Commissioner and Flowers, concluding that the Arkansas tax sale statute, which set forth the notice procedure followed by the Commissioner, complied with constitutional due process requirements.
Jones appealed, and the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's judgment.Jones v. Flowers, No. 04-449, 2004 Ark. LEXIS 722 (Ark Nov. 18, 2004). The court noted Supreme Court precedent stating that due process does not require actual notice, and that attempting to provide notice by certified mail satisfied due process in the circumstances presented.
Opinion of the Court The Supreme Court granted certiorariCert. granted, Jones v. Flowers, 545 U.S. 1165, 126 S. Ct. 35, 162 L. Ed. 2d 933 (2005). to resolve a conflict among the Circuits and state supreme courts concerning whether the Due Process Clause requires the government to take additional reasonable steps to notify a property owner when notice of a tax sale is returned undelivered.Compare, e.g., Akey v. Clinton County, 375 F.3d 231, 236 (2d Cir. 2004) ("In light of the notice's return, the County was required to use 'reasonably diligent efforts' to ascertain Akey's correct address"), and Kennedy v. Mossafa, 789 N.E.2d 607, 611 (N.Y. 2003) ("We reject the view that the enforcing officer's obligation is always satisfied by sending the notice to the address listed in the tax roll, even where the notice is returned as undeliverable"), with Smith v. Cliffs on the Bay Condo. Ass'n., 617 N.W.2d 536, 541 (Mich. 2000) (per curiam) ("The fact that one of the mailings was returned by the post office as undeliverable does not impose on the state the obligation to undertake an investigation to see if a new address . . . could be located"). The United States Solicitor General was granted leave to participate as amicus curiae,Motion granted, Jones v. Flowers, 126 S. Ct. 979 (2006). and argued in support of the Commissioner's position.
In a five-justice opinion delivered by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, the Court reversed the Arkansas Supreme Court and ruled that, under the circumstances, the State's sale of Jones' property violated due process.The Supreme Court, 2005 Term — Leading Cases, 120 Harv. L. Rev. 233 (2006). It held that "when mailed notice of a tax sale is returned unclaimed, the State must take additional reasonable steps to attempt to provide notice to the property owner before selling his property, if it is practicable to do so." Justice Clarence Thomas filed a dissent, arguing that the State's attempts went beyond any requirements the Court's prior precedents had established.
Roberts' majority opinion Chief Justice Roberts wrote that considering the "extraordinary power" the State is exerting against a property owner, "[i]t is not too much to insist that the State do a bit more to attempt to let him know about it when the notice letter addressed to him is returned unclaimed." Though the method of using certified mail was in itself reasonably calculated to give notice, the knowledge that the State gained when the mail was returned unclaimed obligated it to take additional reasonable steps. However, "[i]n response to the returned form suggesting that Jones had not received notice that he was about to lose his property, the State did—nothing." The Court believed that "someone who actually wanted to alert Jones that he was in danger of losing his house would do more when the attempted notice letter was returned unclaimed, and there was more that reasonably could be done."
Reasonably calculated to give notice The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution requires a State to provide an owner with notice and an opportunity to be heard before it may take his property and sell it for unpaid taxes. The Court had recently ruled in Dusenbery v. United States, that the government did not violate due process by sending notice to the jail where the property owner was imprisoned and allowing a prison official to sign for it, even though the prisoner never actually received the notice. Dusenbery established that due process did not require actual notice prior to a governmental taking of property, but instead only that the government attempt to give notice by a method "reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances," to inform all interested parties.
Based on Dusenbery as well as earlier cases, the State argued that once it provided notice reasonably calculated to apprise Jones of the impending tax sale by mailing him a certified letter, due process was satisfied. However, the Court pointed out that in each of those prior cases, the government had subsequently heard nothing back indicating that its attempts had failed. In Dusenbery, for example, the government knew that someone at the prison had signed for the letter. The knowledge that notice had failed was instead "a new wrinkle," and the question before the Court was therefore whether that knowledge constituted a circumstance that alters what notice is required. The Court believed that most federal courts of appeals and state supreme courts to have addressed this issue have decided that the government must do something more when it learns its attempt at notice has failed before it can sell real property in a tax sale. Many states also require by statute more than a simple notice by mail to the delinquent owner.
The means by which service of notice is attempted "must be such as one desirous of actually informing the absentee might reasonably adopt to accomplish it,"Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 315 (1950). Whether a particular method is adequate is determined by balancing the "interest of the State" against "the individual interest sought to be protected by the Fourteenth Amendment." In this case, the Court, emphasized, "we evaluate the adequacy of notice prior to the State extinguishing a property owner's interest in a home," which the Court considered "an important and irreversible prospect."
The Court did not believe that someone who actually desired to inform the owner would do nothing further when a certified letter is returned unclaimed, and satirized the State's position by analogy. "If the Commissioner prepared a stack of letters to mail to delinquent taxpayers, handed them to the postman, and then watched as the departing postman accidentally dropped the letters down a storm drain, one would certainly expect the Commissioner's office to prepare a new stack of letters and send them again. No one ‘desirous of actually informing’ the owners would simply shrug his shoulders as the letters disappeared and say ‘I tried.’ Failure to follow up would be unreasonable, despite the fact that the letters were reasonably calculated to reach their intended recipients when delivered to the postman."