Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-166_8n59.pdf
Page Number: 14

Cite as:  598 U. S. ____ (2023) 

11 

Opinion of the Court 

process  and  equal  protection  of  the  laws.    Id.,  at  109.  In 
their reply brief before this Court, the owners also argued 
for the first time that they had been denied just compensa-
tion under the Takings Clause.  Ibid. 

We  rejected  this  belated  argument.  Lawton  had  sug-
gested that withholding the surplus from a property owner
always  violated  the  Fifth  Amendment,  but  there  was  no
specific procedure there for recovering the surplus.  Nelson, 
352 U. S., at 110.  New York City’s ordinance, in compari-
son,  permitted  the  owner  to  recover  the  surplus  but  re-
quired that the owner have “filed a timely answer in [the]
foreclosure proceeding, asserting his property had a value 
substantially exceeding the tax due.”  Ibid. (citing New York 
v. Chapman Docks Co., 1 App. Div. 2d 895, 149 N. Y. S. 2d 
679  (1956)).  Had  the  owners  challenging  the  ordinance
done so, “a separate sale” could have taken place “so that
[they] might receive the surplus.”  352 U. S., at 110.  The 
owners  did  not  take  advantage  of  this  procedure,  so  they 
forfeited their right to the surplus.  Because the New York 
City ordinance did not “absolutely preclud[e] an owner from
obtaining  the  surplus  proceeds  of  a  judicial  sale,”  but  in-
stead simply defined the process through which the owner 
could claim the surplus, we found no Takings Clause viola-
tion.  Ibid.
  Unlike in Nelson, Minnesota’s scheme provides no oppor-
tunity for the taxpayer to recover the excess value; once ab-
solute title has transferred to the  State, any  excess value
always remains with the State.  The County argues that the 
delinquent taxpayer could sell her house to pay her tax debt 
before the County itself seizes and sells the house.  But re-
quiring a taxpayer to sell her house to avoid a taking is not 
the same as providing her an opportunity to recover the ex-
cess value of her house once the State has sold it.