## Facts

- The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire destroyed nearly all public records of registered real-property titles.
- California enacted a special statute permitting persons in actual and peaceable possession to file a judicial proceeding to confirm and quiet title, with detailed notice requirements.
- Louis Zeiss, in possession, used the statute and obtained a California superior court decree adjudging him owner in fee simple of the disputed San Francisco property.
- The statute required (among other steps) an affidavit that the plaintiff did not know of adverse claimants not named, publication of summons for two months, posting on each parcel, recording and indexing, and personal service on claimants whose names and whereabouts could be ascertained.
- American Land Company, a nonresident claiming an interest, was not named, did not receive personal notice, and learned of the decree about a year later.
- American Land filed a federal bill in equity to quiet title and remove the cloud created by Zeiss’s decree, alleging the statute and decree deprived it of property without due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Constitutional questions were certified from the federal appellate court to the U.S. Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether a state may, under its police power, require landowners to establish title by judicial proceedings after destruction of title records without violating the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. Whether the statute’s notice scheme (publication, posting, recording/indexing, and service where possible) provides due process to unknown or nonresident claimants not personally served.
3. Whether the U.S. Supreme Court must accept the state supreme court’s construction of the statute when evaluating its federal constitutionality.

## Decision

- The Court upheld the statute and sustained the state-court decree quieting title in Zeiss.
- The Court held that securing and registering real-property titles is within the state’s police power, and the state may require title to be established through judicial proceedings before properly constituted tribunals.
- The Court held that unknown and nonresident claimants may be bound through constructive notice by publication when combined with reasonable statutory safeguards and an opportunity to be heard.
- The Court treated the state supreme court’s construction of the statute as controlling for purposes of constitutional review.

## Legal Principles

- The security and registry of real-property titles are matters of public welfare within a state’s police power, including measures responding to extraordinary public necessity.
- Due process permits constructive notice (including publication) in proceedings directed at interests in property when personal service is not reasonably practicable, so long as notice and procedure are reasonably calculated to allow interested persons an opportunity to be heard and include protections against fraud.
- The Fourteenth Amendment restrains only unreasonable and unjust exercises of state power that impair fundamental rights, not lawful regulatory measures.
- In reviewing a state statute’s constitutionality, federal courts accept the authoritative construction given by the state’s highest court.

## Conclusion

The Court sustained California’s post-earthquake title-confirmation procedure and the resulting decree, holding that the state could use its police power to stabilize land titles after record destruction and that the act’s constructive-notice framework and safeguards satisfied Fourteenth Amendment due process for unknown and nonresident claimants.


American Land Co. v. Zeiss, 219 U.S. 47 (1911)