told<\/a> me in January. “There was really no one there to work with us or help us or even tell us what route to go.”<\/p>\nBut it was history that Katyal primarily relied on, citing, among other things, the Statute of Gloucester, which was passed in 1278 by English Parliament. “The Statute of Gloucester was about lands owned by the feudal lord and what happens when a vassal fails to provide enough wheat to his lord and can his lands, which really belong to the lord, escheat to the lord,” said Gorsuch. “And I just don’t understand what on earth any of that history has to do with this case.”<\/p>\n
Kagan later echoed that: “If the mind rebels at the notion that the government can seize your $100,000 bank account and not give you back the $90,000 that you don’t owe…why should…what was going on in 1200 or what was going on in 1776 change anything about that?”<\/p>\n
Katyal also furnished a 1790 Virginia statute in making his case. When Justice Clarence Thomas inquired as to whether there was any example where it was used in a way similar to Tyler’s, where the government kept the profit, Katyal replied that he had not looked for a formal case in which that had happened.<\/p>\n
Of his inability to find a similar case, Thomas later said, “That’s perhaps because [the statute] was never applied in the way that you suggest.”<\/p>\n
The core of Katyal’s argument hinged on the idea that Tyler’s property rights were “extinguished” when she fell behind on her taxes. It would seem that, at the least, the justices did not appear moved by that. “There were lots of great questions from the Court today,” said Martin in a statement to Reason<\/em>. “I hope that the Court will issue a decision holding that it is unconstitutional for the government to take more than it is owed.”<\/p>\nAn exchange toward the end of the oral arguments perhaps best epitomized Katyal’s argument and the trouble it faced. Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked if the state would be justified in seizing someone’s car over $20 of unpaid parking tickets. Katyal said no, because there “is no tradition that goes back that could be looked to.”<\/p>\n
“Well, there weren’t cars then,” Barrett replied.<\/p>\n
The post The Government Stole Her Home Equity Over an Unpaid Tax Bill. Will the Supreme Court Vindicate Her?<\/a> appeared first on Reason.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A win for Geraldine Tyler, who is now 94 years old, would be a win for property rights. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":""},"categories":[18,19,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87927"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}