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Page Number: 13.0

10 

TYLER v. HENNEPIN COUNTY 

Opinion of the Court 

“from the owner the right accorded him by the act of 1861, 
of applying for and receiving from the treasury the surplus
proceeds of the sale of his lands.”  Taylor, 104 U. S., at 218– 
219. 

We extended a taxpayer’s right to surplus even further in 
United States v. Lawton, 110 U. S. 146 (1884).  The property
owner  had  an  unpaid  tax  bill  under  the  1862  Act  for 
$170.50.  Id., at 148.  The Federal Government seized the 
taxpayer’s  property  and,  instead  of  selling  it  to  a  private 
buyer, kept the property for itself at a value of $1100.  Ibid. 
The property owner sought to recover the excess value from 
the Government, but the Government refused.  Ibid.  The 
1861 Act explicitly provided that any surplus from tax sales 
to private parties had to be returned to the owner, but it did 
not  mention  paying  the  property  owner  the  excess  value
where the Government kept the property for its own use in-
stead of selling it.  See 12 Stat. 304.  We held that the tax-
payer  was  still  entitled  to  the  surplus  under  the  statute,
just as if the Government had sold the property.  Lawton, 
110 U. S., at 149–150.  Though the 1861 statute did not ex-
plicitly provide the right to the surplus under such circum-
stances, “[t]o withhold the surplus from the owner would be
to violate the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution and to 
deprive him of his property without due process of law, or 
to take his property for public use without just compensa-
tion.”  Id., at 150. 

The County argues that Taylor and Lawton were super-
seded by Nelson v. City of New York, 352 U. S. 103 (1956),
but that case is readily distinguished.  There New York City
foreclosed on properties for unpaid water bills.  Under the 
governing  ordinance,  a  property  owner  had  almost  two
months after the city filed for foreclosure to pay off the tax
debt, and an additional 20 days to ask for the surplus from
any tax sale.  Id., at 104–105, n. 1.  No property owner re-
quested his surplus within the required time.  The owners 
later  sued  the  city,  claiming  that  it  had  denied  them  due