## Facts

- Rosalyn Brown purchased two vacant apartment buildings in Dallas, Texas, in 1992 and 1993 and later conveyed a 1% undivided interest in each building to her brother, Charles Freeman; the buildings remained vacant until demolition.
- The City of Dallas used an Urban Rehabilitation Standards Board (URSB), a city administrative body authorized after a hearing to determine whether a structure was an “urban nuisance” and to order remedies, including demolition and civil penalties.
- City inspectors prepared property-condition reports citing the buildings for building-code violations and initiated URSB proceedings.
- The City mailed notice of the URSB hearing to Brown and Freeman; the notice stated that demolition was a possible outcome if violations were found.
- Brown and Freeman received the notice the same day as the scheduled hearing.
- Without Brown and Freeman’s knowledge, URSB panel members toured the properties and were provided reports concerning the alleged violations before the hearing.
- Freeman attended the hearing and stated that he planned to make the necessary repairs himself; he did not call city officials or other witnesses.
- The URSB expressed doubt about Freeman’s ability to complete repairs and unanimously voted to demolish both buildings.
- Freeman petitioned for a rehearing; the URSB granted it but again voted to demolish the buildings.
- The City demolished both buildings and assessed demolition costs against Brown and Freeman.
- Brown and Freeman brought a federal action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that they were deprived of their property without a meaningful opportunity to be heard (procedural due process) and that the demolition constituted an unconstitutional, warrantless seizure (Fourth Amendment).

## Issues

1. Whether the City’s notice and URSB hearing procedures (including the rehearing) provided Brown and Freeman procedural due process before demolition of their buildings.
2. Whether the City violated the Fourth Amendment by demolishing the buildings—thus seizing and destroying property—without obtaining a warrant issued by a neutral judicial officer based on probable cause.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment.
- A panel majority held that the City’s notice and URSB hearing process satisfied procedural due process; Brown and Freeman were not entitled to a pre-demolition judicial hearing as a matter of due process.
- A different panel majority held that demolition of the buildings was a Fourth Amendment seizure and that the City’s warrantless demolition, without a judicial warrant or a recognized exception, was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

## Legal Principles

- Procedural due process generally requires notice and an opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner before the government deprives a person of a protected property interest.
- In nuisance-abatement and code-enforcement settings, due process may be satisfied through administrative notice and hearing procedures, particularly when affected owners can appear, present objections, and seek further review through available mechanisms.
- The Fourth Amendment applies to governmental interference with property; destruction of a structure constitutes a “seizure” because it is a meaningful interference with possessory interests.
- Absent an established exception (such as exigent circumstances), a non-emergency seizure accomplished by demolition ordinarily requires a warrant from a neutral judicial officer based on probable cause; an administrative board order, by itself, does not serve as a judicial warrant for Fourth Amendment purposes.

## Conclusion

Freeman v. City of Dallas (1999) upheld Dallas’s URSB notice-and-hearing framework against a procedural due process challenge but, in the panel’s Fourth Amendment analysis, treated non-emergency demolition as a seizure requiring prior judicial-warrant authorization; the Fifth Circuit therefore affirmed the district court’s rejection of the due process claim and its ruling that the warrantless demolitions violated the Fourth Amendment.


Freeman v. City of Dallas, 186 F.3d 601 (1999)