National Review: Seize, Sell, Profit
In the despotic tradition of officeholders whose self-regard exceeds the bounds of their office, meet Patricia DePriest, tax assessor for Union Township in Isabella County, Mich. DePriest believed a family violated her personal vision of the law and set the wheels in motion to deprive them of their home and savings. And now, her overreach has become a matter for the U.S. Supreme Court.
DePriest’s personal interpretations of the law led to a home valued at $200,000 being seized and sold over a $2,200 tax bill (including interest and fees) that never should have been levied in the first place. It is a textbook case of home equity theft, in which a government takes property, sells it, and pockets the equity the homeowners had spent years, if not decades, accruing.
Scott Pung lived with his wife, Donnamarie, and children, Katie and Marc, in a suburban home that he purchased in 1991. He paid his property taxes. State law provides that a homeowner’s “principal residence” is exempt from a supplemental tax for local schools, so Pung filed the necessary paperwork for the exemption in 1994. So far, so good.
In 2004, Pung died, and Donnamarie followed four years later. Katie had left home, but Marc, now a young adult, remained in the house. Katie was too inexperienced to manage the intricacies of her father’s estate, and Scott’s uncle, Michael Pung, stepped up.
Meanwhile, DePriest took a hard line on the principal residence exemption for school taxes. Despite statutory language extending the exemption when beneficiary family members continuously occupy the house, DePriest decided the exemption didn’t apply because the estate didn’t file new paperwork to claim it.
Mike Pung knew this was nonsense on stilts and appealed DePriest’s decision to the state Tax Tribunal. Litigation proved Mike correct: Once Scott Pung filed the paperwork, his beneficiary family members who continued living in the house did not need to file again. That reversed DePriest’s refusal to apply the exemption for 2007, 2008, and 2009.
By the time the court ruled on those years, DePriest had denied the exemption for 2010 and 2011. Did the earlier decision apply to those years, too? Common sense says yes, and so did the court. While that decision exempted the Pungs from paying the 2010 and 2011 school tax, DePriest again denied the exemption for 2012.
In a subsequent trial court hearing, DePriest explained her actions to Mike’s lawyer in language reminiscent of former Jersey City political boss Frank Hague, who once declared “I am the law”:
Q. So you don’t care what the administrative law judge said, you were going to tell them what the law was and apply — and — and deny the 2010 and ’11 taxes, is that right?
A. Yes I did, sir.
Q. You had been told by the administrative law judge that the estate was entitled to the principal residence exemption.
A. And it is, you have to have someone come forward for in the law (sic) to get it.
Q. That’s not what the administrative law judge —
A. I don’t care what he says; the law says that you do.
After a labyrinthine series of actions further punishing the family, DePriest listed the Pung property as delinquent, and the county treasurer promptly began foreclosure proceedings on a home worth nearly $200,000 to recover the approximately $2,200 school tax.
In 2015, even after a state court affirmed the propriety of the exemptions through 2011 (the last year at issue), the county foreclosed on the Pungs’ house for the 2012 unpaid school tax. The county sold Marc Pung’s attractive 3,000-square-foot home at auction for a mere $76,000.
Mike filed a lawsuit in federal court, arguing that DePriest’s and the county’s shenanigans unconstitutionally took the full value of the home — the difference between the $73,000 auction proceeds above and beyond the unpaid taxes returned to the Pungs and the $195,000 fair market value at the time of the sale — in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause and the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause.
In the lower courts, Mike lost. But his tenacity may yet win the day: The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear his case. The Fifth Amendment’s requirement of just compensation for a taking is the fair market value of property. Under the circumstances in this case, the surplus proceeds were substantially less than fair market value. Plus, the forfeiture and improper forced auction of the Pungs’ property, destroying equity more than 50 times the tax due, surely qualifies as an “excessive fine” under the Eighth Amendment. The county had other options, including putting a lien on the property; instead, it chose the harshest penalty possible.
Isabella County owes the Pungs just compensation to make this right. And one hopes Patricia DePriest will discover that the Constitution protects individuals against officials who think they are a law unto themselves.
This op-ed was originally published in National Review on January 4, 2026.
