Majority Opinion
Justice Jackson began his examination of the issues of the case by discussing the nature of the jurisdiction which the Surrogate's Court was exercising. He explained some of the differences in the service of process required in in rem, quasi in rem, and in personam actions. Mullane had argued that this was essentially an in personam action, and that the Surrogate could not exercise jurisdiction on out-of-state residents upon whom personal service had not been made.
Jackson did not explicitly determine what type of jurisdiction was being exercised here, but held that the Fourteenth Amendment applied to all of them regardless of how the state classified the action. The beneficiaries' property rights were at stake here, and without proper notice, the "right to be heard" provided by the Fourteenth Amendment was of no practical consequence. Constructive service via newspaper publication, wrote Jackson, was an unreliable method of giving notice, because newspapers have limited circulation and even then, many people do not examine the legal notices, which are usually in small typeface on the back pages. In this case, the legal notice at issue did not even mention the names of the beneficiaries. Furthermore, under normal circumstances, property holders are directly aware of legal proceedings regarding their property, either directly or through a caretaker. But in this case, the caretaker was the beneficiaries' adversary - the trustee itself - which could not be expected to give them reasonable notice, and the special guardian was also not required to give notice.
Jackson held that notice must be "reasonably calculated" to inform known parties affected by the proceedings. Thus, ยง100-c(12), the section of the statute which dealt with notice to beneficiaries, was unconstitutional. He further held that notice by publication was acceptable for missing or unknown parties, for those whose whereabouts could not be ascertained by due diligence, and for those whose future interests were too conjectural to be known with any certainty. However, Jackson noted that in many cases, notice to the known parties would help the information of the proceedings to reach those who were unknown by the trustee.
Read more about this topic: Mullane V. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co.
Famous quotes containing the words majority and/or opinion:
“Is a Bill of Rights a security for [religious liberty]? If there were but one sect in America, a Bill of Rights would be a small protection for liberty.... Freedom derives from a multiplicity of sects, which pervade America, and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.”
—James Madison (17511836)
“Amongst the learned the lawyers claim first place, the most self-satisfied class of people, as they roll their rock of Sisyphus and string together six hundred laws in the same breath, no matter whether relevant or not, piling up opinion on opinion and gloss on gloss to make their profession seem the most difficult of all. Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 14661536)