Baltimore violated the procedural due process rights of two former tenants who had lost their personal belongings when their landlord evicted them under an unconstitutional city ordinance that provided insufficient notice, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

“In sum, we think it eminently fair to hold a municipality responsible for harm caused by a failure of due process when it passes a confiscatory ordinance that fails to provide for the process due,” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in affirming a district court’s summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs Marshall and Tiffany Todman.