Tyler v. Hennepin County/Opinion of Justice Gorsuch
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 22–166
GERALDINE TYLER, PETITIONER v. HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA, ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
[May 25, 2023]
Justice Gorsuch, with whom Justice Jackson joins, concurring.
The Court reverses the Eighth Circuit’s dismissal of Geraldine Tyler’s suit and holds that she has plausibly alleged a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. I agree. Given its Takings Clause holding, the Court understandably declines to pass on the question whether the Eighth Circuit committed a further error when it dismissed Ms. Tyler’s claim under the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause. Ante, at 14. But even a cursory review of the District Court’s excessive-fines analysis—which the Eighth Circuit adopted as “well-reasoned,” 26 F. 4th 789, 794 (2022)—reveals that it too contains mistakes future lower courts should not be quick to emulate.
First, the District Court concluded that the Minnesota tax-forfeiture scheme is not punitive because “its primary purpose” is “remedial”—aimed, in other words, at “compensat[ing] the government for lost revenues due to the nonpayment of taxes.” 505 F. Supp. 3d 879, 896 (Minn. 2020). That primary-purpose test finds no support in our law. Because “sanctions frequently serve more than one purpose,” this Court has said that the Excessive Fines Clause applies to any statutory scheme that “serv[es] in part to punish.” Austin v. United States, 509 U. S. 602, 610 (1993) (emphasis added). It matters not whether the scheme has a remedial purpose, even a predominantly remedial purpose. So long as the law “cannot fairly be said solely to serve a remedial purpose,” the Excessive Fines Clause applies. Ibid. (emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted). Nor, this Court has held, is it appropriate to label sanctions as “remedial” when (as here) they bear “ ‘no correlation to any damages sustained by society or to the cost of enforcing the law,’ ” and “any relationship between the Government’s actual costs and the amount of the sanction is merely coincidental.” Id., at 621–622, and n. 14.
Second, the District Court asserted that the Minnesota tax-forfeiture scheme cannot “be punitive because it actually confers a windfall on the delinquent taxpayer when the value of the property that is forfeited is less than the amount of taxes owed.” 505 F. Supp. 3d, at 896. That observation may be factually true, but it is legally irrelevant. Some prisoners better themselves behind bars; some addicts credit court-ordered rehabilitation with saving their lives. But punishment remains punishment all the same. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 61. Of course, no one thinks that an individual who profits from an economic penalty has a winning excessive-fines claim. But nor has this Court ever held that a scheme producing fines that punishes some individuals can escape constitutional scrutiny merely because it does not punish others.
Third, the District Court appears to have inferred that the Minnesota scheme is not “punitive” because it does not turn on the “culpability” of the individual property owner. 505 F. Supp. 3d, at 897. But while a focus on “culpability” can sometimes make a provision “look more like punishment,” this Court has never endorsed the converse view. Austin, 509 U. S., at 619. Even without emphasizing culpability, this Court has said a statutory scheme may still be punitive where it serves another “goal of punishment,” such as “[d]eterrence.” United States v. Bajakajian, 524 U. S. 321, 329 (1998). And the District Court expressly approved the Minnesota tax-forfeiture scheme in this case in large part because “ ‘the ultimate possibility of loss of property serves as a deterrent to those taxpayers considering tax delinquency.’ ” 505 F. Supp. 3d, at 899 (emphasis added). Economic penalties imposed to deter willful noncompliance with the law are fines by any other name. And the Constitution has something to say about them: They cannot be excessive.