176
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
hold of the case, no other State would be better situated to do so. Without a forum for periodic settlement of the trust-ee's accounts, the common fund device would be unworkable. Under the circumstances, New York's interest "in providing means [periodically] to close trusts [of the kind involved in Mullane was] . . . so insistent and rooted in custom as to establish beyond doubt the right of its courts to determine the interests of all claimants." Ibid.
Having thus settled the question of the nexus between the forum and the controversy necessary to establish jurisdiction to adjudicate, the Court turned to the means by which potentially affected persons must be apprised of the proceeding: "Quite different from the question of a state's power to discharge trustees," the Court began, "is that of the [full] opportunity it must give beneficiaries to contest." Ibid.
"Personal service of written notice," the Court acknowledged, "is the classic form of notice always adequate in any type of proceeding." Ibid. But that classic form, the Court next developed, "has not in all circumstances been regarded as indispensable to the process due to residents, and it has more often been held unnecessary as to nonresidents." Id., at 314. For beneficiaries whose interests or addresses were unknown to the trustee, notice by publication would do, faute de mieux. Id., at 318. But "[a]s to known present beneficiaries of known place of residence," Mullane instructed, notice by publication would not do. Ibid. Personal service on "the large number of known resident or nonresident beneficiaries," however, would "seriously interfere with the proper administration of the fund." Id., at 318-319 (delay as well as expense rendered such service impractical). For that group, the Court indicated, "ordinary mail to the record addresses," which might be sent with periodic income remittances, was the minimal due process requirement. Id., at 318. The risk that notice would not reach even all known beneficiaries, the Court reasoned, was justifiable, for the common trust
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