Dale v. HahnDale v. Hahn
These cross-appeals are from an order entered May 7, 1973 in the Southern District of New York, Whitman Knapp, District Judge, which (1) held that the 1962 state court order declaring plaintiff-appellee-appellant Rita Hooper Dale (“appellee”) to be incompetent and appointing a committee to manage her affairs was null and void ab initio; and (2) directed the return to appellee by def endants-appellants-appellees (“appellants”)
The primary issue raised on appeal is whether the district court's finding
I.
In 1951, appellee was involuntarily committed to a state mental hospital where she remained until 1967.
During the tenure of the committees, almost $8,000 of appellee’s assets was expended, of which $5,686.16 was paid to the Department of Mental Hygiene. The remainder went for expenses which appellee allegedly would not have incurred had she been permitted to manage her own affairs.
On remand, Judge Knapp held the notice to have been inadequate. In an oral finding of fact made at the conclusion of the trial, he found that the testimony of appellee and John C. Miller (the state’s process server), both of whom were credited as “truthful” witnesses, indicated either that appellee had not been served with notice of the proceeding at all, or that “it was handed to her in circumstances where its meaning did not get through to her.”
II.
As stated above, the district court did not determine whether appellee was or was not physically served with notice of the committee-appointment proceeding. Rather, the finding was to the effect that, assuming arguendo that appellee actually had been served, under the circumstances of her incompetency such notice was inadequate.
The premise underlying that finding is that there may be situations in which physical service of process will not constitute adequate notice. We are satisfied that such a premise is supported by the cases.
“An elementary and fundamental requirement of due process in any proceeding which is to be accorded finality is notice reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections ....
[W]hen notice is a person’s due, process which is a mere gesture is not due process. The means employed must be such as one desirous of actually informing the [person] might reasonably adopt to accomplish it . . . ."339 U.S. at 314-15 (citations omitted).
The New York state courts likewise have recognized the importance of the particular circumstances of a case in assessing the constitutional adequacy of notice. One court summarized the rule as permitting a finding of inadequacy where “the circumstances [are] such as to show that the [recipient] did not come into actual possession of the papers and that his attention was not drawn to their character, or that he had not willfully ignored them and refused to ascertain their nature for the purpose of evading service.” Heller v. Levinson,
The decision below was in accord with those principles.
III.
Appellee’s cross-appeal raises the propriety of limiting the measure of damages to all expenditures incurred by the committees with the exception of those payments made to the Department of Mental Hygiene. In our earlier decision, we stated:
“[I]f plaintiff succeeds in her challenge to the appointment of her com*80 mittees, she will be entitled to reimbursement from defendants for the expenses charged against her assets through the operation of the committees. However, as to the amounts paid to the Department of Mental Hygiene for services rendered by that Department, recovery should be disallowed to avoid multiple litigation. Plaintiff was liable for these latter amounts irrespective of the appointment of the committees; and the accounting in the state courts, at which plaintiff was fully represented, is res judicata as to these amounts.”440 F.2d at 638 n. 8.
The decision of the district court that was the subject of that appeal was rendered subsequent to the settlement of the first committee’s account and prior to the settlement of the second committee’s account (effected in the Supreme Court, Bronx County, on June 8, 1970). Judge Knapp read our opinion as “conclusively establish [ing] that [appellee] may not recover the money paid to the hospital by her first committee”. He further held that appellee had failed to demonstrate why the amounts paid to the Department by the second committee should be treated otherwise.
Appellee contends that the district court improperly felt itself constrained so to limit the appropriate relief. She points particularly to our order of April 5, 1971 denying appellant’s petition for rehearing in which we said that “the new claim that the State court accounting, which was completed subsequent to the proceedings appealed from, is now res judicata must first be resolved below upon the enlarged record.” She argues, in other words, that the hospital should be forced to sue her for the amounts aP legedly due — a proceeding the district court noted she “would welcome for the purpose of litigating whether the hospital in fact gave ‘treatment’ to her.”
In our prior decision we held that any ultimate judgment against appellee’s first committee was not to include payments made to the Department of Mental Hygiene for services rendered by that Department. We find no basis for re-opening that question.
The purpose of a final accounting under
IV.
A final question concerns the State’s contention that the order directing payment to appellee is improper under the Eleventh Amendment on the ground that the defendant state officials are immune from suit. The short answer to that claim is that it is foreclosed by our prior decision.
Affirmed.
Notes
. The named defendants included Demarest J. Hahn, who served as the committee to manage appellee’s affairs from July 24, 1962 until his resignation on October 13, 1966; Alan D. Miller, M.D., Commissioner of the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene; and Lawrence P. Roberts, M.D., Director of Harlem Yalley State Hospital. A fourth defendant, Edward Pious, who served as the successor committee following Hahn’s resignation, after the final settlement of his account was dropped as a defendant pursuant to a stipulation approved by Judge Cooper on February 10, 1970.
. This finding was made in open court at the conclusion of the trial on April 9, 1973, at which time decision was reserved on the consequences of this finding. A memorandum and order was filed on May 7, 1973.
. We assume familiarity with prior proceedings and the background of the case as outlined in Judge Cooper’s opinion of March 26, 1970,
. The petition was filed and processed pursuant to the procedures outlined in what is now
. Jurisdiction was invoked pursuant to the Civil Rights Act,
. This finding was based in large part on the judge’s view of appellee’s likely reaction to adequate notice:
“Attached to the [process affidavit] is a statement indicating that the New York Life Insurance Company is about to turn over the machine belonging to the [appel-lee] to the hospital. The [process server] apparently did not call that to [appel-lee’s] attention.
* * *
Even without the doctor’s testimony, it did seem to me that she had a fairly accurate memory of what went on in those days, especially anything related to that machine ....
Having observed her, I am satisfied that if she had been in anything like a normal condition, had this last paragraph on the third page of this exhibit been read to her, there would have been a reaction which would have made it perfectly apparent that she did not like what was going on.”
. The court also denied appellee’s request to have all records of the committee-appointment proceeding expunged.
. Chaloner v. Sherman,
. The quoted statement in the order denying the petition for rehearing undoubtedly is of no effect in regard to the first committee, the point being limited both in terms and in common sense to the post-judgment settlement of the second committee’s account.