Columbus, OH – On Monday, The Buckeye Institute filed an amicus brief in Craig v. Cromes, calling on the Ohio Supreme Court to hear the case and put an end to Cuyahoga County’s home equity theft scheme.

“On July 22, 1796, Moses Cleaveland arrived with his surveying party at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River to lay out the plat map for the property where, 213 years later, the plaintiffs in this case would live,” Jay R. Carson, senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute. “While Cleaveland could not have foreseen what those plat-lines would become, he would have understood that the government cannot pocket the profits from the sale of property seized to settle a tax debt.”

In its brief, The Buckeye Institute argues that the takings clause—or just compensation clause—enshrined in the U.S. and Ohio Constitutions is rooted in Magna Carta, reflected in colonial statutes, and included in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, out of which Ohio was created. Buckeye argues that the takings clause is unconditional and that when the government does take private property for public use, its duty to compensate the former owner is “categorical.” 

When they loaded their wagons and lit out for the West, the men and women who settled what would become Cuyahoga County would have understood the takings clause to plainly encompass the right to recover the surplus value—or equity—of their property’s value if their property was foreclosed on and sold to settle a tax debt. And in the typical foreclosure process, this is what happens. The U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed this constitutional right in Tyler v. Hennepin County.

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