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
- Whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires an opportunity to be heard, with notice, before a municipal body makes an individualized special assessment irrevocably fixed.
- 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.