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The Health and Human Rights Clinic at IU McKinney filed an amicus brief in an eviction case before the Indiana Court of Appeals in which the court ruled the tenant had been denied due process.

In Mackenzie Taft v. Marilea Piper, 23A-EV-877, the court ruled that Taft had been denied due process rights when the small claims court hearing her eviction failed to give her adequate notice. The Health and Human Rights Clinic, directed by Professor Fran Quigley, J.D. ’87, filed one of the amicus briefs in the case. Professor Quigley and his students are well known for their advocacy on behalf of tenants.

“Indiana courts and Marion County courts in particular have a well-chronicled problem of regularly failing to provide due process in eviction hearings, something our students and faculty have observed first-hand on too many occasions,” Professor Quigley said. “Every week, families lose their homes after hearings that were set within days of a case being filed and with barely a few minutes of testimony. So, we were pleased to help contribute an amicus brief in support of a tenant who through Indiana Legal Services successfully argued to the Indiana Court of Appeals that she was evicted without the most basic of due process in a Marion County township small claims court.”

In the decision, the court noted the claims of the Health and Human Rights Clinic and the other amicus brief writer, the Indiana Justice Project.

“The Indiana University McKinney School of Law Health and Human Rights Clinic and the Indiana Justice Project, as amici, similarly contend that the practice followed by the small claims court, ‘where Ms. Taft was ordered to move from her home without the Court providing the tenant and her counsel an opportunity to defend the claims of a non-emergency possession, reflects the basis for longtime concerns about due process protections in eviction cases[.]’ Amici Br. at 5-6. We must agree,” the court wrote.

Dockets in small claims courts are packed with eviction cases, frequently more than can be reasonably addressed with the limited resources in such courts. Addressing that point later in the decision, the court also said: “A crowded docket does not excuse a small claims court from depriving a litigant of her due process rights. And, here, we hold that the small claims court did not just deny Taft any one due process right, it essentially denied her any of her due process rights.”

Professor Quigley isn’t the only one at IU McKinney pressing for reform in this area of law. Professor Florence Wagman Roisman is among the top echelon of national housing law experts and has been sending students in her property classes to witness eviction hearings for many years. Professor Roisman is a well-known advocate for reforms of this process.

“Students in my property courses regularly attend landlord-tenant courts throughout Indianapolis and see pervasive injustice,” Professor Roisman said. “This victory is gratifying, though what is desperately needed is systemic reform to transform these assembly-line collection agencies into entities warranting the title ‘courts.’”