Page:Tyler v. Hennepin County.pdf/9

6 the power to sell Tyler’s home to recover the unpaid property taxes. But it could not use the toehold of the tax debt to confiscate more property than was due. By doing so, it effected a “classic taking in which the government directly appropriates private property for its own use.” Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 535 U. S. 302, 324 (2002) (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). Tyler has stated a claim under the Takings Clause and is entitled to just compensation.

The principle that a government may not take more from a taxpayer than she owes can trace its origins at least as far back as Runnymede in 1215, where King John swore in Magna Carta that when his sheriff or bailiff came to collect any debts owed him from a dead man, they could remove property “until the debt which is evident shall be fully paid to us; and the residue shall be left to the executors to fulfil the will of the deceased.” W. McKechnie, Magna Carta, A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John, ch. 26, p. 322 (rev. 2d ed. 1914) (footnote omitted).

That doctrine became rooted in English law. Parliament gave the Crown the power to seize and sell a taxpayer’s property to recover a tax debt, but dictated that any “Overplus” from the sale “be immediately restored to the Owner.” 4 W. & M., ch. 1, §12, in 3 Eng. Stat. at Large 488–489 (1692). As Blackstone explained, the common law demanded the same: If a tax collector seized a taxpayer’s property, he was “bound by an implied contract in law to restore [the property] on payment of the debt, duty, and expenses, before the time of sale; or, when sold, to render back the overplus.” 2 Commentaries on the Laws of England 453 (1771).

This principle made its way across the Atlantic. In collecting taxes, the new Government of the United States could seize and sell only “so much of [a] tract of land … as