Supreme Court to Decide Property Rights Cases Involving Taxes and Seizures.

The US Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case involving a 94-year-old woman whose condominium was seized by Hennepin County for failure to pay property taxes. The case raises questions about the way at least a dozen states handle the sale of homes to pay off overdue taxes. The woman's lawyer argues that keeping the excess from the sale is unconstitutional, while the county argues that it doesn't make a profit and that homeowners have ways to avoid forfeiture. This is the first time the Supreme Court has directly considered whether a property tax forfeiture can be considered a taking under the Constitution.