Chief Justice John Roberts rebukes Hennepin County, Minneapolis

 In a delightful-sounding slap-down of Hennepin County, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote "that the taxpayer must 'render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but no more,' effectively ending the practice of home equity theft."

In Chief Justice John Roberts' majority opinion, he wrote "Geraldine Tyler owned a condominium in Hennepin County, Minnesota, that accumulated about $15,000 in unpaid real estate taxes along with interest and penalties. The County seized the condo and sold it for $40,000, keeping the $25,000 excess over Tyler’s tax debt for itself. Minn. Stat. §§281.18, 282.07, 282.08. Tyler filed suit, alleging that the County had unconstitutionally retained the excess value of her home above her tax debt in violation of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment. The District Court dismissed the suit for failure to state a claim, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed."

Next, Chief Justice Roberts "Held: Tyler plausibly alleges that Hennepin County’s retention of the excess value of her home above her tax debt violated the Takings Clause. Pp. 3–14. (a) Tyler’s claim that the County illegally appropriated the $25,000 surplus constitutes a classic pocketbook injury sufficient to give her standing. TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U. S. ___, ___. Even if there are debts on her home, as the County claims, Tyler still plausibly alleges a financial harm, for the County has kept $25,000 that she could have used to reduce her personal liability for those debts."

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled, it's time for Hennepin County to do what's right.

The Supreme Court:

Chief Justice Roberts then wrote this:

Tyler has stated a claim under the Takings Clause, which provides that "private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation." Whether remaining value from a tax sale is property protected under the Takings Clause depends on state law, "traditional property law principles," historical practice, and the Court’s precedents. Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation, 524 U. S. 156, 165–168. Though state law is an important source of property rights, it cannot be the only one because otherwise a State could "sidestep the Takings Clause by disavowing traditional property interests" in assets it wishes to appropriate. Id., at 167. History and precedent dictate that, while the County had the power to sell Tyler’s home to recover the unpaid property taxes, it could not use the tax debt to confiscate more property than was due. Doing so effected a "classic taking in which the government directly appropriates private property for its own use."

Here's hoping that this is just the first step in fixing a past court's ruling on the Takings Clause in Kelo v. New London. That's been an abomination since that ruling was handed down. The Takings Clause was meant for giving municipalities the ability to install vital infrastructure meant for the entire city's benefit. Kelo v. New London benefited exactly one entity -- the company that initially proposed building a shopping mall. That certainly isn't the same as properly compensating a landowner for the land that a state takes for building a trunk highway or that a city takes to build a wastewater treatment plant.