## Facts

- New York law authorized corporate fiduciaries to pool many small trusts into a common trust fund and required periodic judicial settlement of the trustee’s accounts.
- Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co. created a common trust fund with over 100 participating trusts and later petitioned a New York Surrogate’s Court to settle its first accounting.
- The governing statute required notice of the accounting proceeding solely by publication in a newspaper, addressed generally to all interested persons without naming them.
- The trustee had recorded names and addresses for many beneficiaries and had previously communicated with them about the fund, but for the accounting it provided no individualized mailed notice to most beneficiaries whose whereabouts were known.
- A special guardian, appointed to represent certain income beneficiaries and potential beneficiaries not otherwise represented, objected that publication-only notice violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
- The Surrogate’s Court rejected the objection and entered a decree settling the account; the state appellate courts affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether a state may bind resident and nonresident trust beneficiaries in a single judicial proceeding settling the accounts of a common trust fund.
2. Whether notice solely by newspaper publication satisfies due process for:
   1. beneficiaries whose identities or addresses are unknown or not reasonably ascertainable; and
   2. beneficiaries whose names and addresses are known or readily ascertainable.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the state court judgment.
- New York could adjudicate the interests of all beneficiaries in a single accounting proceeding, including nonresidents, if procedures provided a meaningful opportunity to be heard.
- Publication notice was sufficient for beneficiaries whose identities or addresses were unknown and not reasonably ascertainable.
- Publication notice alone was constitutionally insufficient for beneficiaries whose names and addresses were known (or easily ascertainable); ordinary mailed notice to recorded addresses was required.

## Legal Principles

- Due process requires notice “reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties” of the proceeding and provide an opportunity to object.
- The method of notice must be one that a person genuinely seeking to inform affected parties would reasonably use, not a mere formality with low likelihood of reaching them.
- When substantial property interests may be conclusively affected, the state must use practicable, more effective notice methods for known persons (at least ordinary mail) rather than rely solely on publication.
- Publication may satisfy due process when affected persons are unknown or not reasonably identifiable and no more effective practicable method exists.

## Conclusion

The Court held that an accounting decree could bind all beneficiaries of a common trust fund only if notice procedures were realistically designed to inform those to be bound; publication alone could suffice for unknown or unascertainable beneficiaries, but due process required mailed notice to beneficiaries whose names and addresses were known or readily ascertainable.


Mullane v. Cent. Hanover Bank & Tr. Co., 339 U.S. 306 (1950)