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Deborah LaFetra

Deborah LaFetra

Senior Attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation specializing in property rights and constitutional law litigation before the Supreme Court.

Jul 2, 2026

Cameron WestbrookMODERATOR
1:32
Thank you so much for joining us today.
1:35
Well, thank you, Cameron.
1:37
So hello, everybody.
1:38
One thing that Cameron didn't mention is that I was on the litigation teams for both Pung and also for Tyler versus Hennepin County.
1:46
And that's really where the story begins, because in Tyler, which was decided three years ago, the Supreme Court unanimously held that when the government forecloses on a home for taxes, for back taxes, it has to refund the surplus.
2:06
Otherwise, taking the equity would be a taking.
2:10
And in that case, Ms. Tyler didn't argue about what the appropriate amount of the just compensation would be.
Cameron WestbrookMODERATOR
5:00
and penalties and so forth.
82:02
Did the Michigan family lose in this case, unbelievably?
82:07
So the Michigan family gets the right to keep fighting is what they get, because what the court did is it vacated the decision below.
82:19
In the Sixth Circuit, they lost.
82:20
They just flat out lost.
82:21
And if the court had affirmed that, then, you know, the game over.
82:25
But the court didn't do that.
82:27
What the court decided was that although they cannot get fair market value for the house that the county foreclosed on and sold, only the auction proceeds, they can continue to argue that the process that the county employed to foreclose and sell the property was so unfair that it would not be just, it would not be just compensation to restrict them to the auction proceeds.
84:00
Is that what I understand?

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