Here's a newly-filed cert petition which asks the Supreme Court to review a Sixth Circuit decision in which the county auctioned the Church's property to satisfy a tax lien, then kept the difference between the owed taxes plus costs, and the proceeds from the sale. The court dismissed the claim under Williamson County because it concluded that the Church could have pursued compensation from the county under state procedures.
Here are the Questions Presented:
When Wayside Church fell behind on the property taxes for its youth camp, Van Buren County foreclosed and sold the youth camp for $206,000. After satisfying the church’s $16,750 in penalties, taxes, and fees with the proceeds from the sale, the County pocketed the remaining 91% of the property’s value as a windfall required by Michigan’s property tax law. Likewise, the County kept the surplus when it seized and sold Myron Stahl’s land and Henderson Hodgens’s home to pay their small tax debts. Because there is no clear state court remedy for dispossessed property owners to recover the surplus proceeds from tax sales, the church, Stahl, and Hodgens filed a Fifth Amendment takings claims in federal court. But a divided Sixth Circuit panel held that Williamson County Reg’l Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172, 194 (1985), the Tax Injunction Act, and comity barred federal jurisdiction.The questions presented are:1. Does a local government violate the Takings Clause when it takes and sells tax delinquent property and keeps the surplus profit as a windfall?2. Should the Court overrule or limit the portion of Williamson County that requires a property owner to sue in state court to “ripen” a federal takings claim, as suggested by many Justices of this Court? See Arrigoni Enterprises, LLC v. Town of Durham, 136 S. Ct. 1409 (2016) (Thomas, J., joined by Kennedy, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari); San Remo Hotel, L.P. v. San Francisco, 545 U.S. 323, 349 (2005) (Rehnquist, C.J., concurring in judgment).3. Do the Tax Injunction Act and comity bar a federal court from hearing a claim that challenges the uncompensated retention of funds that exceed a tax debt but does not challenge the taxes or debt itself?
Stay tuned. Follow along on the Court's docket here.
Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, Wayside Church v. Van Buren County, No. 17-88 (July 13, 2017)