42 USC § 1983; Whether plaintiff-building owner’s due process rights were violated by defendant-City’s alleged failure to provide it with notice of the building demolition; Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co.; Jones v. Flowers; Warrantless seizure claim; Embassy Realty Invs, Inc. v. City of Cleveland (Unpub 6th Cir)

The court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of plaintiff-The Keene Group’s claim that its due process rights were violated by defendant-City of Cincinnati’s failure to provide it with notice of the demolition of a building it had purchased at a sheriff’s sale where plaintiff knew of the condemnation proceedings at the time of purchase and made no effort to resolve the building’s nuisance issues. Plaintiff claimed that it had no knowledge that the City had decided to raze the building before it was demolished, and sued the City under § 1983. The City had sent plaintiff letters regarding the demolition by certified mail, but plaintiff never received them. After the demolition, the City billed plaintiff for more than $10,000. The district court dismissed the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6). The court first considered plaintiff’s claim that its due process rights were violated by the City’s failure to provide it with notice of the demolition. It upheld the district court’s dismissal, concluding that Jones did “not require reversal here because, as the Supreme Court reiterated in that case, what constitutes adequate notice under the Due Process Clause depends on the circumstances of each case.” Plaintiff argued that after the letters were not delivered, the City was required to use all public databases to contact it before the demolition. But the court noted that the Supreme Court rejected this argument in Jones. Plaintiff had notice of the condemnation proceedings, and was aware that it was required to abate the public nuisance but failed to do so. Thus, the court held that it received the notice to which it was entitled—“‘notice reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances,’ of the pendency of the condemnation proceedings[.]” It also held that the City was not required to obtain a warrant to demolish a condemned, vacant building because plaintiff did not establish a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in the building, and the seizure “‘to remediate the established nuisance was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.’”