Raven sends:
Late last month, we reported on the case of 94-year-old grandmother Geraldine Tyler, whose Minneapolis condo was sold by Hennepin County in Minnesota for $40,000 to pay off a $15,000 tax debt: 94-year-old Grandmother Fights Home Equity Theft at the U.S. Supreme Court
The kicker was that instead of returning the $25,000 surplus over the amount Geraldine owed the state, Hennepin County decided to keep the whole amount! Even worse, the County’s retention of those funds was entirely in keeping with Minnesota state law, as we reported[.]
SCOTUS knocked this down in a unanimous vote. Raven asks how the lower courts could be so out of touch as to tee this up for a unanimous SCOTUS vote. It's a good question: the practice is obviously a form of theft in blatant violation of the takings clause. My guess is that government theft is now so ordinary a practice that a series of sitting judges couldn't see anything wrong with it.
3 comments:
One could hope that beyond a certain point, judges actually were trying to tee it up for the SCOTUS to get a more solid and generalisable ruling.
But i doubt it.
It's my hour (of the week) to be charitable and kind.
So I'll go with AVI's hope.
There! Only 58 minutes left and the stress is killing me.
I believe that the procedure is that this ruling sends it back to the previous court for settlement under the understandings of the ruling. If that's the case, I hope they rule that she should get not only the difference, but at current market value (which I'd imagine is a bit higher). If not, she's being robbed yet again of potential capital earnings.
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