## Facts

- Landlords leased commercial premises to Sherman’s, Inc. for an interior-decorating retail business; the tenant’s principals executed personal guarantees.
- The tenant fell behind on rent, and the landlords sued the tenant and guarantors for unpaid rent.
- To secure payment, the landlords invoked New Jersey’s statutory remedy of distraint for rent arrears and requested a municipal constable’s assistance.
- Acting under statutory authority, the constable padlocked the premises and seized the tenant’s goods located in the store.
- The distraint statutes permitted seizure and eventual public sale of distrained goods without prior notice or a pre-seizure hearing, while leaving the tenant post-seizure avenues to contest the distraint.
- The tenant counterclaimed that the distraint procedure unconstitutionally deprived it of property without due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.

## Issues

1. Whether a landlord’s distraint executed by a municipal constable under New Jersey’s distraint statutes constitutes “state action” that triggers Fourteenth Amendment due process requirements.
2. If state action exists, whether the commercial distraint statutes provide constitutionally sufficient notice and opportunity to be heard, given the absence of a pre-seizure hearing.

## Decision

- The court held that the municipal constable’s participation in distraint under statutory authority constitutes state action attributable to the State.
- The court held that the distraint statutes, as applied to commercial tenancies and read in light of available post-seizure judicial remedies, satisfy due process and are not unconstitutional on their face.
- The court rejected the tenant’s broad constitutional attack on the commercial distraint scheme and left the landlords’ rent recovery intact.

## Legal Principles

- Use of a public officer (such as a municipal constable) to seize property pursuant to a statutory distraint remedy is conduct fairly attributable to the State and is subject to Fourteenth Amendment due process constraints.
- Due process analysis is context-dependent; in commercial landlord-tenant disputes, the availability of prompt post-seizure judicial review can be sufficient even without a pre-seizure hearing.
- A statutory distraint procedure may be sustained through narrowing construction that limits its application to commercial tenancies and emphasizes meaningful post-seizure opportunities to challenge the seizure and the amount claimed.
- Cost-shifting provisions tied to unsuccessful challenges do not necessarily defeat due process where they do not foreclose access to judicial review in the commercial setting.

## Conclusion

The court treated a commercial distraint carried out by a municipal constable as state action but upheld New Jersey’s commercial distraint statutes because, when confined to commercial tenancies and coupled with post-seizure judicial remedies, the procedure provides constitutionally adequate process.


Callen v. Sherman's, Inc., 92 N.J. 114, 455 A.2d 1102 (N.J. 1983)