Connecticut v. Doehr
Opinion of the Court
Opinion of the Court
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[Justice White](/wiki/Byron_R._White "Byron R. White") delivered the opinion of the Court. The Court was unanimous as to the result of the case and Parts I and III of the opinion but not the entire opinion.

The Court concluded that the constitutionality of the Connecticut prejudgment attachment procedure must be judged by the balancing test for due process claims described in *[Mathews v. Eldridge](/wiki/Mathews_v._Eldridge "Mathews v. Eldridge")* (1976\). The Court concluded that the Connecticut law created too great a risk of erroneous deprivation of property to survive scrutiny under *Mathews*. In reaching that conclusion, the Court emphasized, among other things, that no notice of the proposed attachment was given to the defendant before it was levied, no pre\-attachment hearing was provided even though the plaintiff's perfunctory verification may provide the judge with little or no insight into the validity of the plaintiff's claim, there was no requirement that the subject\-matter of the claim be related to the real property being attached, and there was no requirement that the plaintiff show special circumstances such as that the defendant was seeking to evade payment of any judgment that might be awarded. The Court also observed that while an attachment of defendant's real property did not deprive them of the use of the property, it nonetheless represented a significant interference with the defendant's ownership rights.

In Parts IV and V of his opinion, which spoke only for a [plurality](/wiki/Plurality_opinion "Plurality opinion") of the Court, Justice White asserted that due process also required that a plaintiff obtaining an attachment must post a [bond](/wiki/Surety_bond "Surety bond") or other security for the damages the defendant might suffer in the event the attachment and underlying lawsuit proved to be unjustified.

### Rehnquist's concurrence

[Chief Justice Rehnquist](/wiki/William_H._Rehnquist "William H. Rehnquist") filed a concurring opinion, joined by [Justice Blackmun](/wiki/Harry_Blackmun "Harry Blackmun"). Chief Justice Rehnquist agreed that the Connecticut attachment statute failed to satisfy due process but objected to what he described as the majority opinion's "lengthy disquisition as to what combination of safeguards are required to satisfy Due Process in hypothetical cases not before the Court."

### Scalia's concurrence

[Justice Scalia](/wiki/Antonin_Scalia "Antonin Scalia") filed a one\-paragraph opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. The only Justice who declined to join Part II of Justice White's opinion, he opined that because the Connecticut pre\-judgment attachment procedure was "unknown at common law," it must be evaluated in light of the balancing test for due process that the Court set forth in *Mathews v. Eldridge* and agreed that it failed that test.


Why does the Court reject the argument that the procedure is constitutional under a different standard?