What Process Is Due Before Property Is Destroyed?

The McIntoshes own a mobile home park in Madisonville , Kentucky .

After a tenant complained, the city found mold and mildew in one of the homes, condemned it and ordered it demolished.

Michael and Rebecca McIntosh challenged the city's action on several legal grounds.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit found the trial court was too quick to dismiss the procedural due process claim.

City of Madisonville , Kentucky , condemned a mobile home owned by Michael and Rebecca McIntosh .

City officials tore it down over Mr. McIntosh 's continued objections.

McIntosh : Officials' conduct gave the McIntoshes the right to the judicial "proceedings" that the "common law" would have provided.

Justices: Court watered down the right's traditional protections by holding that the guaranteed process "need not take the form of a judicial or quasi-judicial trial" But this expansion would have created massive burdens if the Court had kept to the traditional meaning of "due process of law" The Court suggested that the government need only provide a "meaningful" hearing, with the judiciary deciding what process satisfied this benchmark.