## Facts

- Detroit faced many vacant, deteriorated residential structures that were repeatedly broken into, vandalized, and used in unsafe or unsanitary ways, creating threats to public health and safety.
- Detroit adopted a nuisance-abatement ordinance aimed at vacant, blighted homes whose condition had a severe detrimental effect on health and safety and could be declared public nuisances.
- After a nuisance determination, the ordinance allowed the City to choose among abatement options, including demolition, repair through ordinary contracting, or a “nuisance-abatement contract” with a private citizen.
- Under a nuisance-abatement contract, a private party could enter the property, secure and repair it to code, and then occupy the premises after rehabilitation, rather than merely performing repairs and leaving.
- The ordinance required notice to the record owner at each stage of the nuisance-abatement process and provided opportunities for the owner to appear, assert ownership, and take steps to stop or end the nuisance-abatement contract by curing the nuisance conditions.
- Moore, an owner of a property affected by the ordinance, challenged the ordinance as unconstitutional, arguing that allowing a private person to obtain possession and occupancy rights effectively confiscated private property for a public purpose.
- Moore argued that the scheme was, in substance, eminent domain and that due process therefore required payment of just compensation, which the ordinance did not provide.
- The trial court ruled for Detroit. The Michigan Court of Appeals initially affirmed without addressing the federal due-process claim.
- The United States Supreme Court remanded to the Michigan Court of Appeals for consideration of Moore’s due-process challenge, resulting in this “on remand” decision.

## Issues

1. Whether Detroit’s nuisance-abatement ordinance, which authorizes private parties to enter, repair, and later occupy a dwelling declared a public nuisance, is an exercise of police power or an exercise of eminent domain requiring just compensation.
2. Whether the ordinance deprives owners of property without due process of law, given the transfer of possessory/occupancy interests to a private rehabilitator.

## Decision

- The Michigan Court of Appeals (on remand) affirmed the judgment for the City of Detroit and upheld the ordinance.
- The court held the ordinance operates as nuisance abatement under the City’s police power, not as eminent domain.
- Because the ordinance was treated as police-power abatement of a public nuisance, the court rejected Moore’s claim that due process required just compensation.
- The court concluded that the ordinance’s procedures—notice at each stage and repeated opportunities for the owner to appear, assert ownership, and cure the nuisance—provided constitutionally adequate due process.

## Legal Principles

- Government may abate a public nuisance through the police power; limits on property interests tied to eliminating nuisance conditions generally do not require just compensation.
- An abatement program does not become eminent domain merely because the City selects rehabilitation rather than demolition, or because it uses private actors as a means of carrying out the abatement.
- Procedural due process in nuisance-abatement proceedings requires notice reasonably calculated to inform the owner and a meaningful opportunity to be heard and to protect the owner’s interest.
- Due process may be satisfied where the ordinance gives owners multiple notices and opportunities to reclaim control by correcting the code-violating conditions or otherwise terminating the abatement arrangement.

## Conclusion

Moore v. City of Detroit upheld Detroit’s ordinance authorizing nuisance-abatement contracts that let private parties enter, rehabilitate, and later occupy blighted homes declared public nuisances. On remand to address due process, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled the scheme was a police-power response to dangerous conditions, not a compensable taking through eminent domain, and that the ordinance’s step-by-step notice and opportunities for owners to contest the proceedings or cure the nuisance provided due process.


Moore v. City of Detroit, 406 N.W.2d 488 (1987)