## Facts

- Vivian Warren and her husband bought a residence from HUD and executed a note secured by a deed of trust originally in favor of FNMA.
- After congressional restructuring, the note and deed of trust were transferred to GNMA, a federally owned but separately incorporated entity administered under HUD authority.
- The deed of trust included a power-of-sale clause permitting nonjudicial foreclosure by trustee’s sale under Missouri law upon default.
- In September 1970, a successor trustee (a private attorney retained by GNMA) sent Warren a first-class letter stating the debt was accelerated and demanding full payment; Warren did not respond.
- GNMA directed the trustee to foreclose by publishing notice in a legal-notice newspaper and conducting a public trustee’s sale at which GNMA purchased the property.
- After the sale, Warren was notified to vacate; she stayed, and GNMA obtained possession through a Missouri unlawful detainer judgment and a writ of restitution.

## Issues

1. Whether GNMA’s use of Missouri’s power-of-sale foreclosure procedure constituted federal government action sufficient to trigger Fifth Amendment due process protections.
2. If so, whether the nonjudicial foreclosure procedures employed deprived Warren of due process.

## Decision

- The Eighth Circuit affirmed judgment for GNMA.
- The court held the challenged foreclosure did not involve federal action attributable to the United States.
- Because the Fifth Amendment was not triggered, Warren’s due process challenge to the foreclosure procedures failed.

## Legal Principles

- Fifth Amendment due process constraints apply only to conduct fairly attributable to the federal government.
- A foreclosure carried out under a contractual power-of-sale clause pursuant to state law, by a private trustee, is generally treated as private enforcement of contractual rights.
- Federal ownership, chartering, or oversight of a separately incorporated entity does not, without more, convert routine private-law foreclosure activity into federal action.
- Later resort to state courts to obtain possession after a trustee’s sale does not by itself transform the preceding nonjudicial foreclosure into federal action.

## Conclusion

The court upheld GNMA’s nonjudicial foreclosure because the trustee’s sale conducted under Missouri law was not federal action; therefore, the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause did not apply to the foreclosure process used against Warren.


Warren v. Government Nat’l Mortg. Ass’n, 611 F.2d 1229 (8th Cir. 1980)