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Special Edition: Supreme Court RecapOn Wednesday, PLF senior attorney Christina Martin argued Tyler v. Hennepin County at the Supreme Court. The case caused a stir with media, especially after Supreme Court Justices seemed to side with PLF client Geraldine Tyler as they poked holes in the government’s defense. (“Is your theory that the state can define property as it wishes?” Chief Justice John Roberts skeptically asked the county’s attorney at one point.) Good Morning America: Supreme Court takes on what critics call predatory tax foreclosure practice
“It’s just like if you owed me $14 and I reached in your wallet and I took everything, no matter how much was in your wallet," Christina Martin told Good Morning America in an interview.
Supreme Court Justices “seemed in broad agreement” with PLF’s Christina Martin during oral arguments, the Associated Press reports.
Several Justices “questioned the state’s take-all policy and pushed back against claims that homeowner rights are ‘extinguished’ once the state seizes a property title,” Fox News notes.
Hennepin County’s attorney faced “increasingly overt hostility” from the Supreme Court Justices when he tried to defend the county’s behavior toward grandmother Geraldine Tyler. “Unsurprisingly, it looked like grandma will win,” NPR’s Nina Totenberg reports.
“Justice Neil Gorsuch wondered whether there are any limits to government power to seize property without handing back the surplus when someone is behind on taxes,” NBC News recounts. “He gave an example of a $1 million property on which the owner owes $5,000 in taxes."
Before oral arguments, Christina Martin made her case in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
“With Wednesday’s home equity theft case, and with two other cases heard last fall, the PLF has 5 percent of the court’s docket this term,” George Will notes in his Washington Post column. “Little platoons like PLF exist to make government’s big battalions be nice to people like Geraldine Tyler." |
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