Fuentes v. Shevin

Facts

Margarita Fuentes bought a gas stove and service policy, and later a stereo phonograph, from Firestone under conditional sales contracts calling for monthly payments. The total cost was about $500, plus a financing charge of over $100. Firestone kept title, but Fuentes was entitled to possession unless she defaulted. After more than a year of payments, with about $200 left to pay, a dispute arose over servicing of the stove. Firestone sued in a small-claims court to repossess both items. At the same moment, before she had received a summons, it obtained a writ of replevin, a court order for officers to seize goods. Firestone only had to fill in blanks on forms and file them with the clerk, who issued the writ. That same day a deputy sheriff and a Firestone agent took the stove and stereo from her home. Pennsylvania appellants also had household goods seized under similar writs, issued on the application of sellers or, in one case, of a former husband, with no prior notice or hearing. Florida required a bond of double the goods' value and a complaint. Pennsylvania required only a bond and an affidavit of value. Neither State gave the possessor notice or a hearing before the seizure.

Issues

1. Does the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause require notice and an opportunity to be heard before a State seizes goods from a person's possession under a writ of replevin issued on another private party's application?
2. Did buyers under conditional sales contracts, whose right to keep ordinary household goods was in dispute, hold a property interest protected by due process, and did the contracts waive their right to a prior hearing?

Holding

The Florida and Pennsylvania prejudgment replevin provisions deprive persons of property without due process of law insofar as they deny a prior opportunity to be heard before chattels are taken from their possessor. The Court called its holding narrow.