Richard Hutchings, et al. v. Ameren Transmission Company of Illinois

A then-new provision of the Illinois Public Utilities Act for providing expedited hearings to site electrical transmission lines effectively required that notice be given to landowners on proposed routes, but not to landowners subsequently put at risk by a new route proposed by the first landowners. The questions presented are: I. Where an evidentiary hearing to evaluate specified criteria under a power line siting statute results in orders approving a specific route for a line, directing its construction, and granting eminent domain authority to a privately owned utility, and also gives rise to a strong statutory presumption of public use and necessity for eminent domain litigation purposes, does the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment require that affected landowners be given notice of those proceedings so that they may participate? II. In those circumstances, where the siting statute requires that landowners affected by the route first proposed by the utility be given notice, does the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment require that other landowners to whose lands the first owners propose to shift the route be given notice so that they, too, may participate? III. Are courts required to provide a forum at some stage in which landowners affected by this quasijudicial administrative decision which resulted in approval of a detailed route may present their claim that they have been deprived of their right to notice under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment? (i)