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6 

TYLER v. HENNEPIN COUNTY 

Opinion of the Court 

the power to sell Tyler’s home to recover the unpaid prop-
erty 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-Si-
erra 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. 

B 
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  Runnymeade  in  1215,  where  King  John  swore  in
the  Magna  Carta  that  when  his  sheriff  or  bailiff  came  to
collect any debts owed him from a dead man, they could re-
move 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 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 “Over-
plus” 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  de-
manded the same: If a tax collector seized a taxpayer’s prop-
erty, 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 col-
lecting  taxes,  the  new  Government  of  the  United  States 
could seize and sell only “so much of [a] tract of land . . . as