The government may not decline to recognize long-established interests in property as a device to take them. That was the effect of the Michigan Act as applied to the plaintiffs here; and we agree with the plaintiffs that, on the facts alleged here, the County took their property without just compensation. We therefore reverse the district court’s dismissal of their claim against the County under the Takings Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The Magna Charta itself had provided that a debtor’s lands could be taken only to the extent necessary to satisfy the debt. Magna Charta ¶ 26 (1215); see also Den ex dem. Murray v. Hoboken Land & Imp. Co., 59 U.S. 272, 277 (1855).
In an 1808 case, for example, Chief Justice Marshall held that a tax collector had “unquestionably exceeded his authority” when he had sold more land than “necessary to pay the tax in arrear.” Stead’s Ex’rs v. Course, 8 U.S. 403, 414 (1808); see also, e.g., Margraff v. Cunningham’s Heirs, 57 Md. 585, 588 (1882) (tax collector’s “duty is to sell no more than is reasonably sufficient to pay the taxes and charges thereon, when a division is practicable without injury”); Loomis v. Pingree, 43 Me. 299, 311 (Me. 1857) (applying the same rule); Martin v. Snowden, 59 Va. 100, 118–19, 139 (1868) (same).
“According to the long-settled rules of law and equity in all the states whose jurisprudence has been modelled upon the common law,” the Court wrote, “legal title to the premises in question vested” in the creditor upon the debtor’s default; yet the landowner still held “equitable title” to the property. Bronson v. Kinzie, 42 U.S. 311, 318 (1843)