## Facts

- Denver undertook a local improvement project to pave Eighth Avenue under authority granted by state law and the Denver City Charter.
- The city levied a special assessment against property abutting the improvement, including corner lots owned by Wolfe Londoner and Dennis Sheedy.
- Notice of the proposed assessment was given by newspaper publication for ten days.
- The notice stated that affected owners could file written complaints and objections within thirty days and that objections would be “heard” before the assessment ordinance passed.
- Londoner, Sheedy, and others filed timely written objections.
- The city council adopted the assessment without providing an oral hearing or an opportunity for objectors to present evidence or argument in person.
- A Colorado trial court set aside the assessment as a denial of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.
- The Colorado Supreme Court reversed, concluding the procedure complied with state and local law and did not violate due process.
- The landowners sought review in the U.S. Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires an opportunity to be heard, with notice, before a municipal body makes an individualized special assessment irrevocably fixed.
2. Whether allowing only written objections, without any hearing permitting argument and proof, satisfies due process for such assessments.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Colorado Supreme Court.
- The Court held the special assessment was void because the landowners were denied due process of law.
- Due process required that, at some stage before the assessment became final, affected taxpayers receive notice and a hearing allowing them to support objections by argument and, if necessary, proof.
- The opportunity to file written objections alone was insufficient where the assessment depended on individualized determinations by a delegated body.
- A denial of due process by municipal authorities acting in the assessment process is attributable to the State for Fourteenth Amendment purposes.

## Legal Principles

- When the legislature delegates to a subordinate body the task of determining whether, in what amount, and upon whom a tax or special assessment will be levied, due process requires notice and an opportunity to be heard before the charge is finally fixed.
- General legislative decisions on taxation may be made without individual hearings, but individualized determinations affecting specific persons and parcels require a hearing procedure that permits argument and, if necessary, evidence.
- Due process is not satisfied by a procedure that merely allows written objections where the decisionmaker fixes an individualized assessment without any hearing at which the taxpayer may appear and be heard.

## Conclusion

Because Denver’s special assessment involved individualized determinations delegated to the city council, the Fourteenth Amendment required notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard before the assessment became final; written objections without a hearing for argument and proof did not satisfy due process, so the assessment could not stand.


Londoner v. City & County of Denver, 210 U.S. 373 (1908)