"Supreme Court Considers Legality of State Property Tax 'Windfall'"

The US Supreme Court is set to hear a case involving a 94-year-old woman's battle with a Minnesota county government that seized and sold her condominium to cover her unpaid property taxes and kept the proceeds beyond the amount she owed. The case tests constitutional checks on excessive fines and property seizure. The dispute concerns Minnesota's tax regime under which the state takes "absolute title" of a property if an owner fails to pay property taxes for five years. Tyler has accused the county of violating the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment bar on the uncompensated taking of private property by a government for public use and Eighth Amendment protection against excessive fines.