454 U.S. 516 (1982)

TEXACO, INC., ET AL.
v.
SHORT ET AL.

No. 80-965.

Supreme Court of United States.

Argued October 6, 1981 Decided January 12, 1982^[*] APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIANA

*518 John L. Carroll argued the cause for appellants in both cases and filed briefs for appellants in No. 80-965. James M. Buthod and Mark W. Rietman filed briefs for appellants in No. 80-1018.

Verner P. Partenheimer argued the cause for appellees in both cases. With him on the brief were Ronald W. Polston, Linley E. Pearson, Jack R. O'Neill, and Charles R. Nixon.^[†]

JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.

In 1971 the Indiana Legislature enacted a statue providing that served mineral interest that in not used for a period of 20 years automatically lapses and reverts to the current surface owner of the property, unless the mineral owner, files a statement of claim in the local county recorder's office.^[1] The Indiana Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of the statute. ___ Ind. ___, 406 N. E. 2d 625 (1980). We note probable jurisdiction, 450 U. S. 993, and now affirm.

As the Indiana Supreme Court explained, the Mineral Lapse Act "puts an end to interests in coal, oil, gas or other minerals which have not been used for twenty years."^[2] The statute provides that the unused interest shall be "extinguished" and that its "ownership shall revert to the then owner of the interest out of which it was carved."^[3] The statute, which became effective on September 2, 1971, contained a 2-year grace period in which owners of mineral interests *519 that were then unused and subject to lapse could preserve those interests by filing a claim in the recorder's office.^[4]

The "use" of a mineral interest^[5] that is sufficient to preclude its extinction includes the actual or attempted production of minerals, the payment of rents or royalties, and any payment of taxes;^[6] a mineral owner may also protect his interest by filing a statement of claim with the local recorder of deeds.^[7] The statute contains one exception to this general *520 rule: if an owner of 10 or more interests in the same county files a statement of claim that inadvertently omits some of those interests, the omitted interests may be preserved by a supplemental filing made within 60 days of receiving actual notice of the lapse.^[8]

The statute does not require that any specific notice be given to a mineral owner prior to a statutory lapse of a mineral estate. The Act does set forth a procedure, however, by which a surface owner who has succeeded to the ownership of a mineral estate pursuant to the statute may give notice that the mineral interest has lapsed.^[9]

*521 Two cases are consolidated in this appeal. The facts in each are stipulated. In No. 80-965, appellants include 11 parties who claim ownership of fractional mineral interests served in 1942 and in 1944 from a 132-acre tract of land in Gibson County, Ind.; a 12th appellant is the lessee of oil and gas leases executed in 1976 and 1977 by the other appellants. The appellee is the surface owner of the 132-acre tract from which the appellants' mineral interests were carved. The parties stipulated that the appellants had not used the mineral interest for 20 years and had not filed a statement of claim within 2 years of the effective date of the statute. Thus, under the terms of the Dormant Mineral Interests Act, the mineral interest automatically lapsed on September 2, 1973, when the 2-year grace period expired. On April 28, 1977, appellee gave notice that the mineral interests had lapsed.^[10] Appellants responded by filing statements of claim in the Office of the Recorder of Gibson County. Thereafter, appellee filed this action, seeking a declaratory judgment that the rights of the mineral interest owners had lapsed and were extinguished by reason of the Dormant Mineral Interests Act.

In No. 80-1018, the severed mineral estate was created on March 1, 1954. On the date, appellants Pond and Bobe conveyed land to appellees by a warranty deed that contained a reservation of the mineral estate. On June 17, 1976, Pond and Bobe executed a coal mining lease with appellant Consolidated Coal Co. The parties stipulated that, for a 20-year *522 period following the creation of the mineral estate, appellants did not use the interest or file a statement of claim in the Recorder's Office. Thus, on March 1, 1974, a date more than two years after the effective date of the Dormant Mineral Interests Act, a statutory lapse occurred. On March 4, 1977, appellees gave notice of the lapse, both by letter to the appellants and by publication in the Princeton Daily Clarion. The parties jointly filed the instant lawsuit on January 12, 1978, to resolve their conflicting claims to the mineral rights.

In each case it is agreed that if the statue is valid, appellants' mineral interests have lapsed because of their failure to produce minerals, pay taxes, or file a statement of claim within the statutory period. In neither case does the agreed statement of facts indicate whether any of the appellants was aware of the enactment of the Mineral Lapse Act, or of its possible effect on his mineral interests, at any time after the enactment of the statute and before the appellees published notice of the lapse of the mineral estates.

At all stages of the proceedings, appellants challenged the constitutionality of the Dormant Mineral Interests Act. Appellants claimed that the lack of prior notice of the lapse of their mineral rights deprived them of property without due process of law, that the statute effected a taking of private property for public use without just compensation, and that the exception contained in the Act for owners of 10 or more mineral interests denied them the equal protection of the law; appellants based these arguments on the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.^[11] Appellants also *523 contended that the statute constituted an impairment of contracts in violation of Art. I, § 10, of the constitution.^[12] The state trial court held that the statute deprived appellants of property without due process of law, and effected a taking of property without just compensation.^[13]

On appeal, the Indiana Supreme Court reversed. The court first explained the purpose of the Mineral Lapse Act:

"The Act reflects the legislative belief that the existence of a mineral interest about which there has been no display of activity or interest by the owners thereof for a period of twenty years or more is mischievous and contrary to the economic interests and welfare of the public. The existence of such stale and abandoned interests creates uncertainties in titles and constitutes an impediment to the development of the mineral interests that may be present and to the development of the surface rights as well. The Act removes this impediment by returning the severed mineral estate to the surface rights owner. There is a decided public interest to be served when this occurs. The extinguishment of such an interest makes the entire productive potential of the property again available for human use." ___ Ind., at ___, 406 N. E. 2d, at 627.

The court rejected the argument that a lapse of a vested mineral interest could not occur without affording the mineral owner prior notice and an opportunity to be heard. The court noted that "[p]rior to any extinguishment the owner of an interest will have had notice by reason of the enactment itself of the conditions which would give rise to an extinguishment and at a minimum a two-year opportunity to prevent those conditions from occurring by filing a statement of *524 claim."^[14] The Indiana Supreme Court also rejected the argument that the statute effected a taking without just compensation. The court reasoned that, like statutes of limitations, the Mineral Lapse Act was a permissible exercise of the police power of the State.^[15] Finally, the court rejected the argument that the statute violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by providing a special exception for owners of 10 or more interests who, through inadvertence, failed to preserve all such interests. The court again noted that the purpose of the statute was to encourage *525 the development of mineral interests, and held that it was rational for the Indiana Legislature to provide special protection for owners of 10 or more mineral interests since those owners are more likely to be able to engage in the actual production of mineral resources.^[16]

I

Appellants raise several specific challenges to the constitutionality of the Mineral Lapse Act. Before addressing these arguments, however, it is appropriate to consider whether the State has the power to provide that property rights of this character shall be extinguished if their owners do not take the affirmative action required by the State.^[17]

In Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 577, the Court stated:

"Property interests, of course, are not created by the Constitution. Rather, they are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law — rules or understandings that secure certain benefits and that support claims of entitlement to those benefits."

The State of Indiana has defined a severed mineral estate as a "vested property interest," entitled to "the same protection *526 as are fee simple titles."^[18] Through its Dormant Mineral Interests Act, however, the State has declared that this property interest is of less than absolute duration; retention is conditioned on the performance of at least one of the actions required by the Act. We have no doubt that, just as a State may create a property interest that is entitled to constitutional protection, the State has the power to condition the permanent retention of that property right on the performance of reasonable conditions that indicate a present intention to retain the interest.

From an early time, this Court has recognized that States have the power to permit unused or abandoned interests in property to revert to another after the passage of time. In Hawkins v. Barney's Lessee, 5 Pet. 457, the Court upheld a Kentucky statute that prevented a landowner from recovering property on which the defendant had resided for more than seven years under a claim of right. The Court stated:

"Such laws have frequently passed in review before this Court; and occasions have occurred, in which they have been particularly noticed as laws not to be impeached on the ground of violating private right. What right has any one to complain, when a reasonable time has been given him, if he has not been vigilant in asserting his rights?" Id., 466.^[19]

*527 Similarly, in Wilson v. Iseminger, 185 U. S. 55, the Court upheld a Pennsylvania statue that provided for the extinguishment of a reserved interest in ground rent if the owner collected no rent and made no demand for payment for a period of 21 years.^[20] Though the effect of the Pennsylvania statute was to extinguish a fee simple estate of permanent duration, the Court held that the legislation was valid.^[21]

*528 In these early cases, the Court often emphasized that the statutory "extinguishment" properly could be viewed as the withdrawal of a remedy rather than the destruction of a right.^[22] We have subsequently made clear, however, that, when the practical consequences for extinguishing a right are identical to the consequences of eliminating a remedy, the constitutional analysis is the same. El Paso v. Simmons, 379 U. S. 497, 506-507. The extinguishment of the property owners' "remedy" in Hawkins and Iseminger placed them in precisely the same position as that held by the mineral owners in the instant cases after their interests had lapsed.

The Indiana statute is similar in operation to a typical recording statute. Such statutes provide that a valid transfer of property may be defeated by a subsequent purported transfer if the earlier transfer is not properly recorded. In Jackson v. Lamphire, 3 Pet. 280, the Court upheld such a statute, even as retroactively applied to a deed that need not have been recorded at the time delivered. The Court stated:

"It is within the undoubted power of state legislatures to pass recording acts, by which the elder grantee shall be postponed to a younger, if the prior deed is not recorded within the limited time; and the power is the same whether the deed is debated before or after the passage of the recording act. Though the effect of such a law is to render the prior deed fraudulent a void against a subsequent purchaser, it is not a law impairing the obligation of contracts; such too is the power to pass acts of limitations, and their effect. Reasons of sound policy have led to the general adoption of laws of both descriptions, and their validity cannot be questioned. The time *529 and manner of their operation, the exceptions to them, and the acts from which the time limited shall begin to run, will generally depend on the sound discretion of the legislature, according to the nature of the titles, the situation of the country, and the emergency which leads to their enactment." Id., at 290.

These decisions clearly establish that the State of Indiana has the power to enact the kind of legislation at issue. In each case, the Court upheld the power of the State to condition the retention of a property right upon the performance of an act within a limited period of time. In each instance, as a result of the failure of the property owner to perform the statutory condition, an interest in fee was deemed as a matter of law to be abandoned and to lapse.

It is also clear that the State has not exercised this power in an arbitrary manner. The Indiana statute provides that a severed mineral interest shall not terminate if its owner takes any one of three steps of establish his continuing interest in the property. If the owner engages in actual production, or collects rents or royalties from another person who does or proposes to do so, his interest is protected. If the owner pays taxes, no matter how small, the interest is secure. If the owner files a written statement of claim in the county recorder's office, the interest remains viable. Only if none of these actions is taken for a period of 20 years does a mineral interest lapse and revert to the surface owner.

Each of the actions required by the State to avoid an abandonment of a mineral estate furthers a legitimate state goal. Certainly the State may encourage owners of mineral interests to develop the potential of those interests; similarly, the fiscal interest in collecting property taxes is manifest. The requirement that a mineral owner file a public statement of claim furthers both of these goals by facilitating the identification and location of mineral owners, from whom developers may acquire operating rights and from whom the county may collect taxes. The State surely has the power to condition *530 the ownership of property on compliance with conditions that impose such a slight burden on the owner while providing such clear benefits to the State.^[23]

II

Two of appellants' arguments may be answered quickly. Appellants contend that the Mineral Lapse Act takes private property without just compensation in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment; they also argue that the statute constitutes an impermissible impairment of contracts in violation of the Contract Clause. The authorities already discussed mandate rejection of each of these arguments.

In ruling that private property may be deemed to be abandoned and to lapse upon the failure to its owner to take reasonable actions imposed by law, this Court has never required the State to compensate the owner for the consequences of his own neglect. We have concluded that the State may treat a mineral interest that has not been used for 20 years and for which no statement of claim has been filed as abandoned; it follows that, after abandonment, the former owner retains no interest for which he may claim compensation. It is the owner's failure to make any use of the property — and not the action of the State — the causes the lapse of the property right; there is no "taking" that requires compensation. The requirement that an owner of a property interest that has not been used for 20 years must come forward and file a current statement of claim is not itself a "taking."

*531 Nor does the Mineral Lapse act unconstitutionally impair the obligation of contracts. In the specific cases under review, the mineral owners did not execute the coal and oil leases in question until after the statutory lapse of their mineral rights. The statute cannot be said to impair a contract that did not exist at the time of its enactment. Appellants' right to enter such an agreement of course has been impaired by the statute; this right, however, is a property right and not a contract right. In any event, a mineral owner may safeguard any contractual obligations or rights by filing a statement of claim in the county recorder's office. Such a minimal "burden" on contractual obligations is not beyond the scope of permissible state action.^[24]

III

Appellants' primary attack on the Dormant Mineral Interests Act is that it extinguished their property rights without adequate notice. In advancing this argument, appellants actually assert two quite different claims. First, appellants argue that the State of Indiana did not adequately notify them of the legal requirements of the new statute. Second, appellants argue that mineral interest may not be extinguished unless the surface owner gives the mineral owner advance notice that the 20-year period of nonuse is about to expire. When these two arguments are considered separately, it is clear that neither has merit.

A

The first question raised is simply how a legislature must go about advising its citizens of actions that must be taken to avoid a valid rule of law that a mineral interest that has not been used for 20 years will be deemed to be abandoned. The answer to this question is no different from that posed for any *532 legislative enactment affecting substantial rights. Generally, a legislature need do nothing more than enact and publish the law, and afford the citizenry a reasonable opportunity to familiarize itself with its terms and to comply. In this case, the 2-year grace period included in the Indiana statute forecloses any argument that the statute is invalid because mineral owners may not have had an opportunity to become familiar with its terms. It is well established that persons owning property within a State are charged with knowledge of relevant statutory provisions affecting the control or disposition of such property.^[25]

It is also settled that the question whether a statutory grace period provides an adequate opportunity for citizens to become familiar with a new law is a matter on which the Court shows the greatest deference to the judgment of state legislatures. See Jackson v. Lamphire, 3 Pet., at 290; Wilson v. Iseminger, 185 U. S., at 62-63. A legislative body is in a far better position than a court to form a correct judgment concerning the number of persons affected by a change in the law, the means by which information concerning the law in disseminated in the community, and the likelihood that innocent persons may be harmed by the failure to receive adequate notice.^[26]

In short, both the Indiana Legislature and the Indiana Supreme Court have concluded that a 2-year period was sufficient *533 to allow property owners in the State to familiarize themselves with the terms of the statute and to take any action deemed appropriate to protect existing interests. On the basis of the records in these two proceedings, we cannot conclude that the statute was so unprecedented and so unlikely to come to the attention of citizens reasonably attentive to the enactment of laws affecting their rights that this 2-year period was constitutionally inadequate. We refuse to displace hastily the judgment of the legislature and to conclude that a legitimate exercise of state legislative power is invalid because citizens might not have been aware of the requirements of the law.^[27]

B

We have concluded that appellants may be presumed to have had knowledge of the terms of the Dormant Mineral Interests Act. Specifically, they are presumed to have known that an unused mineral interest would lapse unless they filed a statement of claim. The question then presented is whether, given that knowledge, appellants had a constitutional right to be advised — presumably by the surface owner — that their 20-year period of nonuse was about to expire.

In answering this question, it is essential to recognize the difference between the self-executing feature of the statute and a subsequent judicial determination that a particular lapse did in fact occur. As noted by appellants, no specific notice need be given of an impending lapse. If there has *534 been a statutory use of the interest during the preceding 20-year period, however, by definition there is no lapse — whether or not the surface owner, or any other party, is aware of that use. Thus, no mineral estate that has been protected by any of the means set forth in the statute may be lost through lack of notice. It is undisputed that, before judgment could be entered in a quiet title action that would determine conclusively that a mineral interest has reverted to the surface owner, the full procedural protections of the Due Process Clause — including notice reasonably calculated to reach all interested parties and a prior opportunity to be heard — must be provided.

Appellants place primary reliance on our decision in Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306. In that case the Court considered the constitutional sufficiency of notice given to the beneficiaries of a common trust fund of a judicial settlement of accounts by the trustee of the fund. The Court held that the notice by publication authorized by the relevant New York statute was not sufficient, since it was not reasonably calculated to apprise the beneficiaries of the pendency of the judicial proceeding. Justice Jackson, writing for the Court, stated:

"Many controversies have raged about the cryptic and abstract words of the Due Process Clause but there can be no doubt that at a minimum they require that deprivation of life, liberty or property by adjudication be preceded by notice and opportunity for hearing appropriate to the nature of the case." Id., at 313.

Specifically, the Court held that "[a]n elementary and fundamental requirement of due process in any proceeding which is to be accorded finality is notice reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections,," id., at 314; the notice in Mullane was deficient "not because in fact it fail[ed] to reach everyone, *535 but because under the circumstances it [was] not reasonably calculated to each those who could easily be informed by other means at hand." Id., at 319.

The reasoning in Mullane is applicable to a judicial proceeding brought to determine whether a lapse of a mineral estate did or did not occur, but not to the self-executing feature of the Mineral Lapse Act. The due process standards of Mullane apply to an "adjudication" that is "to be accorded finality." The Court in Mullane itself distinguished the situation in which a State enacted a general rule of law governing the abandonment of property.^[28] It has long been established that "laws [must] give the person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly," Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. *536 104, 108, but it has never been suggested that each citizen must in some way be given specific notice of the impact of a new statute on his property before that law may affect his property rights.

As emphasized above, appellants do not challenge the sufficiency of the notice that must be given prior to an adjudication purporting to determine that a mineral interest has not been used for 20-years. Appellants simply claim that the absence of specific notice prior to the lapse of a mineral right renders ineffective the self-executing feature of the Indiana statute. That claim has no greater force than a claim that a self-executing statute of limitations is unconstitutional. The Due Process Clause does not require a defendant to notify a potential plaintiff that a statue of limitations is about to run, although it certainly would preclude him from obtaining a declaratory judgment that his adversary's claim is barred without giving notice of that proceeding.

Appellants also rely on a series of cases that have required specific notice and an opportunity to be heard before a driver's license is suspended for failure to post security after an accident,^[29] before property is seized pursuant to a prejudgment replevin order,^[30] or before service is terminated by a *537 public utility for failure to tender payment of amounts due.^[31] In each of those cases, however, the property interest was taken only after a specific determination that the deprivation was proper.^[32] In the instant case, the State of Indiana has enacted a rule of law uniformly affecting all citizens that establishes the circumstances in which a property interest will lapse through the inaction of its owner. None of the cases cited by appellants suggests that an individual must be given advance notice before such a rule of law may operate.^[33]

*538 We have held that the State may impose on an owner of a mineral interest the burden of using that interest or filing a current statement of claim. We think it follows inexorably that the State may impose on him the lesser burden of keeping informed of the use or nonuse of his own property. We discern no procedural defect in this statute.^[34]

IV

The Indiana statute allows a mineral owner to retain an interest, notwithstanding a failure to file a statement of claim within the statutory period, if he satisfies four specific conditions: (1) he must own at least 10 mineral interests in the county; (2) he must have made a diligent effort to preserve all his interests and have succeeded is preserving some; (3) his failure to preserve the interest in question must have been *539 through "inadvertence"; and (4) he must file a statement of claim within 60 days after receiving notice that the mineral interest has lapsed.^[35] Appellants contend that this special exception violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

There is nothing in the records to tell us how often, if ever, this statutory exception has been invoked. Nor do the records indicate the number of persons who own 10 or more interests in any one county in Indiana. Since mineral interests may be bought and sold like other property, and often have little value, the composition of the class benefited by this exception is subject to constant change. Unlike those classes that are defined by personal characteristics, anyone who purchases 10 fractional mineral interests in the same county, of whatever value, can join this favored class.

Although appellants do not suggest that they are financially unable to join the special class, or that its existence has any adverse impact on their own rights — or indeed that excision of the exception from the Act would provide them with any benefit whatsoever — they nevertheless argue that it is basically unfair to treat owners of multiple interests more favorably than they are treated. The Indiana Supreme Court has explained, however, that the State has an interest in encouraging the assembly of multiple interests in a single ownership because such owners are more likely to be able to engage in the actual production of mineral resources.^[36] This *540 state interest in unquestionably legitimate. Thus, a statutory provision that encourages multiple ownership — by giving that kind of ownership additional protection against forfeiture after it has been assembled — is related to the central purpose of the statute. Since the exception furthers a legitimate statutory purpose, and has no adverse impact on persons like the appellants who owner fewer mineral interests, the exception does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The judgment of the Supreme Court of Indiana is affirmed.

It is so ordered.

JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom JUSTICE WHITE, JUSTICE MARSHALL, and JUSTICE POWELL join, dissenting.

There is no measurable dispute in these cases concerning Indiana's power to control, define, and limit interests in land within its boundaries. Nor is there any question that Indiana has a legitimate interest in encouraging the productive use of land by establishing a registration system to identify the owners of mineral rights. Nor indeed is there any question that extinguishment of a mineral owner's rights may be an appropriate sanction for a failure to register., The question presented here is simply whether the State of Indiana has deprived these appellants of due process of law by extinguishing their pre-existing property interests without regard to whether they knew, and without providing any meaningful mechanism by which they might have learned, of the imminent taking of their property or their obligations under the law.

I

The State of Indiana has historically afforded owners of incorporeal interests in minerals all the protections and privileges enjoyed by any owner of an estate in land held in fee simple. The mineral interests of the appellants here were thus assuredly within the scope of the dual constitutional guarantees that there be no taking of property without just *541 compensation, and no deprivation of property without the due process of law. By the statute at issue in these cases, Indiana has imposed upon the owners of mineral interests the requirement that they pay taxes, or put their interest to productive use, or make their identity known by filing a statement of claim every 20 years. If the mineral interest owner fails to comply with these conditions, this interest is extinguished, and the mineral rights in the land are, by operation of law, merged with the surface estate, to the benefit of the surface owner.^[1]

*542 As to one class of mineral interest owners, there is no question that the statute is a constitutionally proper exercise of the State's power. Every mineral interest in land carved from the fee after the effective date of the statute was carved subject to the statute's limitations. In prospective application the statute simply provides that any instrument purporting to transfer a mineral interest carries with it the implicit condition that unless the transferee uses the land within the meaning of the statute, his interest wills revert to the transferer. It is only whether State seeks to change the fundamental nature of a property interest already in the hands of its owner that the operative restrictions of both the Takings Clause and the Due Process Clause come into play.

If Indiana were by simple fiat to "extinguish" all preexisting mineral interests in the State, or to transfer those interests to itself, to surface owners, or indeed to anyone at all, that action would surely be unconstitutional and unenforceable — at least absent just compensating. That is not the case here for, as the Court points out, ante, at 529, 531, the State has offered the owner of a mineral interest several options by which he may preserve his interest, and a grace period in which he may do so. Because the State has provided these options, the Court concludes that there has been no unconstitutional deprivation of property: "It is the owner's failure to make any use of the property — and not the action of the State — that causes the lapse of the property right . . . ." Ante, at 530. The Court disdains any serious consideration of whether the saving options afforded by the State are in any meaningful way within the reach of the mineral interest owners.^[2] In this respect the Court errs, for the Due Process *543 Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires the Court to make precisely the inquiry the Court avoids. As we have noted:

"It does not follow, however, that what [a State] can legislate prospectively it can legislate retrospectively. The retrospective aspects of legislation, as well as the prospective aspects, must meet the test of due process, and the justifications for the latter may not suffice for the former." Usery v. Turner Elkhorn Mining Co., 428 U. S. 1, 16-17 (1976).

There is much to be said for the maxim upon which the Court places its principal reliance in upholding the retrospective application of this statue: that each citizen may be *544 charged with knowledge of the law.^[3] The justification for that rule is its necessity. As a practical matter, a State cannot afford notice to every person who is or may be affected by a change in the law. But an unfair and irrational exercise of state power cannot be transformed into a rational exercise merely by invoking a legal maxim or presumption. If it is to survive the scrutiny that the Constitutional retries us to afford laws that deprive persons of substantial interests in property, an enactment that relies on the presumption of knowledge must evidence some rational accommodation between the interests of the State and fairness to those against whom the law is applied. Cf. Vlandis v. Kline, 412 U. S. 441 (1973). By acknowledging that there is some limit to the exercise of legislative power to transform the interests of persons in property, we do not depart from the principle of utmost deference to the judgment of the legislature to reach those accommodations in the first instance. But the Constitutions puts even our most cherished legal maxims and presumptions to the test of fairness and rationality in light of common experience. "[I]n passing on the constitutionality of a state law, its effect must be judged in the light of its practical *545 application to the affairs of men as they are ordinarily conducted." North Laramie Land Co. v. Hoffman, 268 U. S. 276, 283 (1925).

Thus, we have recognized certain very limited circumstances in which a Sate's reliance on the maxim that a man may be presumed to know the law is not consistent with the restrictions imposed by the Constitution on legislative action. In Lambert v. California, 355 U. S. 225 (1957), a municipal ordinance made it an offense for any convicted felon to remain in the city of Los Angeles for more than five days without registering with the police. We held that the ordinance, which purported to deprive a person of liberty for failing to register, could not be applied to a person who neither knew, nor could reasonably have been expected to know, of his legal obligation. As we noted:

"[W]e deal here with conduct that is wholly passive — mere failure to register. It is unlike the commission of acts, or the failure to act under circumstances that *546 should alert the doer to the consequences of his deed. The rule that `ignorance of the law will not excuse' is deep in our law, as is the principle that of all the powers of local government, the police power is `one of the least limitable.' On the other hand, due process places some limits on its exercise. Engrained in our concept of due process is the requirement of notice. Notice is sometimes essential so that the citizen has the chance to defend charges. Notice is required before property interests are disturbed, before assessments are made, before penalties are assessed. Notice is required in a myriad of situations where a penalty or forfeiture might be suffered for mere failure to act. . . .

"Registration laws are common and their range is wide. Many such laws are akin to licensing statutes in that they pertain to the regulation of business activities. But the present ordinance is entirely different. Violation of its provisions is unaccompanied by any activity whatever, mere presence in the city being the test. Moreover, circumstances which might move one to inquire as to the necessity of registration are completely lacking. . . . [T]his appellant no first becoming aware of her duty to register was given no opportunity to comply with the law and avoid its penalty, even though her default was entirely innocent." Id., at 228-229 (emphasis added) (citations omitted).

There is, of course, no general requirement that a State take affirmative steps to inform its citizenry of their obligations under a particular statute before imposing legal sanctions for violation of that statute. Lambert suggests no such general requirement. Rather, that case highlights the limited circumstances in which the State's reliance on a presumption of knowledge strains the constitutional requirement that the liberty and property of persons be dealt with fairly and rationally by the State. The State's power to impose sanctions on individuals is to be tested in part against the rationality of the proposition that those individuals were *547 or could have been aware of their legal obligations. The present case, like Lambert, involve the necessity of notice in the context of a registration statute sufficiently unusual in character, and triggered in circumstances so commonplace, that a average citizen would have no reason to regard the triggering event as calling for a heightened awareness of one's legal obligations.^[4]

The opinion of the Court suggests that the presumption of knowledge of the law is not unreasonable in cases such as these because it is a customary feature of property ownership that the landowner monitor the Acts of the legislature that may affect his interest. Ante, at 532. The Court would appear to treat property owners as businessmen, of whom we do indeed expect the greatest attentiveness to regulatory obligations in the conduct of their business affairs. But neither our cases nor our experience supports the Court's supposition about the diligence reasonably expected of property owners. Property owners have historically been allowed to rest easy in the knowledge that their holding is secure, absent some affirmative indication to the contrary; to rely on the general practice that "[n]otice is required before property interests are disturbed, before assessments are made, before penalties are assessed. Notice is required in a myriad of situations where a penalty or forfeiture might be suffered for mere failure *548 to act." Lambert v. California, 355 U. S., at 228. Surely no contrary understanding of the obligations or property ownership could be attributed to the mineral interest owners of Indiana. It was there historic complacency, heretofore undisturbed by statutory obligation, that prompted the State of Indiana to install the regulatory regime at issue here.

The Constitution does, of course, permit the interests of a property owner to be adversely affected upon notice less exacting than those mechanisms of notification deemed minimally acceptable in other contexts. But the rationale for this standard of "lesser notice" with respect to matters involving land bears restating for the contrast that it presents with the circumstances of these cases:

"[P]ublication traditionally has been acceptable as notification supplemental to other action which in itself may reasonably be expected to convey a warning. The ways of an owner with tangible property are such that he usually arranges means to learn of any direct attack on his possessory or proprietary rights. Hence, libel of a ship, attachment of a chattel or entry upon real estate in the name of law may reasonably be expected to come promptly to the owner's attention,. when the state within which the owner has located such property seizes if for some reason, publication or posting affords and additional measure of notification. A state may indulge the assumption that one who has left tangible property in the state either has abandoned it,in which case proceedings against in deprive him of nothing, or that he has left some caretaker under a duty to let him know that it is being jeopardized." Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306, 316 (1950) (emphasis added; citations omitted).

It may be reasonable to expect property owners to maintain sufficient awareness of their property to mark those situations in which the property is physically disturbed with some scrutiny of their duties and obligations under the law. The owners of the incorporeal interest at issue here are *549 hardly in a similar situation. There is no event or circumstance to which they might have turned their powers of observation; nothing has ben directly attacked, seized, possessed, used, or depleted. The only "caretaker" who could have guarded the interest of appellants from the silent actions of the legislature and the surface owner, is a caretaker charged with the responsibility of daily surveillance over happenings in the state legislature. In light of "the affairs of men as they are ordinarily conducted," a State may not constitutionally attribute to each citizen the foresight, or the continuing duty, to maintain a lobbyist in the state capital in order to guard his property from extinguishment.

The Court also relies on cases involving the application o