Trustees of the Thomas E. Proctor Heirs Trust v. Keta Gas & Oil Company, et al.

The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires state governments to provide adequate notice before depriving a citizen of his or her property. U.S. Const. amend. XIV; Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306 (1950); Jones v. Flowers, 547 U.S. 220, 234 (2006). In this case, Pennsylvania courts once again have disregarded this constitutional requirement and ignored this Court’s precedent by permitting the deprivation of Petitioners’ property following notice given solely through newspaper publication, a method of notice that this Court views as little more than a “feint,” Mullane, 339 U.S. at 315, even though state officials actually knew the identities and whereabouts of the interested parties. This case presents the following question for this Court’s review: Does the Pennsylvania court’s refusal to apply “preconceived notions of what is reasonable in the age of the Internet,” in the context of a tax sale where the only notice given to a known owner was by publication in local newspapers, justify the categorical disregard of this Court’s decision in Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306 (1950), which also preceded the “age of the Internet” by decades yet held notice by publication was inadequate where the identity of the property owner was known?