Page:Tyler v. Hennepin County.pdf/5

2 if at the end of three years the bill has not been paid, absolute title vests in the State, and the tax debt is extinguished. §§281.18, 282.07. The State may keep the property for public use or sell it to a private party. §282.01 subds. 1a, 3. If the property is sold, any proceeds in excess of the tax debt and the costs of the sale remain with the County, to be split between it, the town, and the school district. §282.08. The former owner has no opportunity to recover this surplus.

Geraldine Tyler is 94 years old. In 1999, she bought a one-bedroom condominium in Minneapolis and lived alone there for more than a decade. But as Tyler aged, she and her family decided that she would be safer in a senior community, so they moved her to one in 2010. Nobody paid the property taxes on the condo in Tyler’s absence and, by 2015, it had accumulated about $2300 in unpaid taxes and $13,000 in interest and penalties. Acting under Minnesota’s forfeiture procedures, Hennepin County seized the condo and sold it for $40,000, extinguishing the $15,000 debt. App. 5. The County kept the remaining $25,000 for its own use.

Tyler filed a putative class action against Hennepin County and its officials, asserting that the County had unconstitutionally retained the excess value of her home above her tax debt. As relevant, she brought claims under 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. 505 F. Supp. 3d 879, 883 (Minn. 2020). The Eighth Circuit affirmed. 26 F. 4th 789, 790 (2022). It held that “[w]here state law recognizes no property interest in surplus proceeds from a tax-foreclosure sale conducted after adequate notice to the owner, there is no unconstitutional taking.” Id., at 793. The court also rejected Tyler’s claim under the Excessive Fines Clause, adopting the District Court’s reasoning that the forfeiture was not a fine because