Actions in Rem—Proceedings Against Land.—For the purpose of determining the extent of a nonresident's title to real estate within its limits, a State may provide any reasonable means of imparting notice.[724] Precluded from going beyond its boundaries and serving nonresident owners personally, States in such cases of necessity have had recourse to constructive notice or service by publications. This they have been able to do because of their inherent authority over titles to lands within their borders. Owners, nonresident as well as resident, are charged with knowledge of laws affecting demands of the State pertinent to property and of the manner in which such demands may be enforced.[725] Accordingly, only so long as the property affected has been brought under control of the Court, will a judgment obtained thereto without personal notice to a nonresident defendant be effective. Insofar as jurisdiction is thus required over a nonresident, it does not extend beyond the property involved.[726] Consistently with such principles, San Francisco, after the earthquake of 1906, had destroyed nearly all records, permitted titles to be reestablished by parties in possession by posting summons on the property, serving them on known claimants, and publishing them against unknown claimants in newspapers for two weeks.[727]
Actions in Rem—Attachment Proceedings.—In fulfillment of the protection which a State owes to its citizens, it may exercise its jurisdiction over real and personal property situated within its borders belonging to a nonresident and permit an appropriation of the same in attachment proceedings to satisfy a debt owed by the nonresident to one of its citizens or to settle a claim for damages founded upon a wrong inflicted on the citizen by the nonresident. Being neither present within the State nor domiciled therein, the nonresident defendant cannot be served personally; and consequently any judgment in money obtained against him would be void and could not thereafter be satisfied either by execution on the nonresident's property subsequently found within the State or by suit and execution thereon in another State. In such instances, the citizen-plaintiff may recover, if at all, only by an in rem proceeding involving a levy of a writ of attachment on the local property of the defendant, of which proceeding the nonresident need be notified merely by publication of a notice within the forum State. However, any judgment rendered in such proceedings can have no consequence beyond the property attached. If the attached property be insufficient to pay the claim, the plaintiff cannot thereafter sue on such judgment to collect an unpaid balance; and if property owned by the defendant cannot be found within the State, the attachment proceedings are, of course, summarily concluded.[728]
Actions in Rem—Corporations, Estates, Trusts, Etc.—Probate administration, being in the nature of a proceeding in rem, is one to which all the world is charged with notice.[729] Thus, in a proceeding against an estate involving a suit against an administratrix to foreclose a mortgage executed by the decedent, the heir, notwithstanding that the suit presents an adverse claim the disposition of which may be destructive of his title to land deriving from the decedent, may properly be represented by the administratrix and is not entitled to personal notification or summons.[730] For like reasons, a statutory proceeding whereunder a special administrator, having charge of an estate pending a contest as to the validity of the will, is empowered to have a final settlement of his accounts without notice to the distributees, is not violative of due process. The executor, or administrator c.t.a., has an opportunity to contest the final settlement of the special administrator before giving the latter an acquittance; and since the former represents all claiming under the will, it cannot be said the absence of notice to the distributees of the settlement deprives them of their rights without due process of law.[731]
In litigation to determine succession to property by proceedings in escheat, due process is afforded by personal service of summons upon all known claimants and constructive notice by publication to all claimants who are unknown.[732] Whether a proceeding by the State to compel a bank to turn over to it unclaimed deposits in quasi in rem or strictly in rem, the essentials of jurisdiction over the deposit are that there be a seizure of the res at the commencement of the suit and reasonable notice and opportunity to be heard. These requirements are met by personal service on the bank and publication of summons to depositors and of notice to all other claimants. The fact that no affidavit of impracticability of personal service on claimants is required before publication of such notices does not render the latter unreasonable inasmuch as they are used only in cases where the depositor is not known to the bank officers to be alive.[733] Similarly, a Kentucky statute requiring banks to turn over to the State deposits long inactive is not violative of due process where, although the deposits are taken over upon published notice only, without any judicial decree of actual abandonment, they are to be held by the State for the depositor until such determination and for five years thereafter.[734] However, a procedure is at least partly defective whereby a bank managing a common trust fund in favor of nonresident as well as resident beneficiaries may, by a petition, the only notice of which is by publication in a local paper, obtain a judicial settlement of accounts which is conclusive on all having an interest in the common fund or in any participating trust. Such notice by publication is sufficient as to beneficiaries whose interests or addresses are unknown to the bank, since there are no other more practicable means of giving them notice; but is inadequate as a basis for adjudication depriving of substantial rights persons whose whereabouts are known, inasmuch as it is feasible to make serious efforts to notify them at least by mail to their addresses on record with said bank.[735] On the other hand, failure to make any provision for notice to majority stockholders of a suit by dissenting shareholders, under a statute which provided that, on a sale or other disposition of all or substantially all of corporate assets, a dissenting shareholder shall have the right, after six months, to be paid the amount demanded, if the corporation makes no counter offer or does not abandon the sale, does not deny due process; for the majority stockholders are sufficiently represented by the corporation.[736]
Actions in Rem—Divorce Proceedings.—The jurisdictional requirements for rendering a valid decree in divorce proceedings are considered under the full faith and credit clause. See pp. [662-670].
Misnomer of Defendant—False Return, Etc.—An unattainable standard of accuracy is not imposed by the due process clause. If a defendant within the jurisdiction is served personally with process in which his name is misspelled, he cannot safely ignore it on account of the misnomer. If he fails to appear and plead the misnomer in abatement, the judgment binds him. In a published notice intended to reach absent or nonresident defendants, where the name is a principal means of identifying the person concerned, somewhat different considerations obtain. The general rule, in case of constructive service of process by publication, tends to strictness. However, published notice to "Albert Guilfuss, Assignee," in a suit to partition land, was adequate to render a judgment binding on "Albert B. Geilfuss, Assignee," the latter not having appeared.[737]
Foreclosure of a mortgage made upon process duly issued but which the sheriff falsely returned as having been duly served, and of which the owner had no notice, does not deprive said owner of property without due process of law. A purchaser of the land at the sheriff's sale has a right to rely on such return; otherwise judicial proceedings could never be relied upon. The mortgagor must seek his remedy against the sheriff upon his bond.[738]