Amicus Curiae Brief — Johanna McGee, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Jacqueline McGee, et al., Petitioners v. Alger County Treasurer, et al.

No. 25-203

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

JOHANNA MCGEE, AS PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE

OF THE ESTATE OF JACQUELINE MCGEE, et al.,

Petitioners,

v.

ALGER COUNTY TREASURER, et al.,

Respondents.

On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the

Court of Appeals of Michigan

BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE

PIONEER INSTITUTE, INC., AND

GREATER BOSTON LEGAL SERVICES, INC.,

IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS

BENJAMIN G. ROBBINS

FRANK J. BAILEY

Pioneer New England Legal

Foundation

185 Devonshire Street,

Suite 1101

Boston, MA 02110

JOSEPH P. DAVIS III

Counsel of Record

JULIA FROST-DAVIES

ALISON T. HOLDWAY

TUNG-YU CHARLIE LIU

Greenberg Traurig, LLP

One International Place,

Suite 2000

Boston, MA 02110

Telephone: 617.310.6000

davisjo@gtlaw.com

ILANA B. GELFMAN

TODD S. KAPLAN

Greater Boston Legal Services

197 Friend Street

Boston, MA 02114

Counsel for Amici Curiae

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Cited Authorities .......................................... ii

Identities and Interests of Amici Curiae ...................1

Summary of the Argument .........................................2

Argument .....................................................................4

I. This Court Should Grant Certiorari to

Consider Overruling Nelson v. City of

New York ...........................................................4

A. Nelson Contravenes Centuries of AngloAmerican Law..............................................5

B. Nelson Is Unworkable. ................................9

C. Tyler Distinguished Nelson Without

Reaffirming It. ...........................................12

II. This Court Should Grant Certiorari to

Consider Whether the Michigan Statute

Violates the Excessive Fines Clause. .............12

Conclusion..................................................................14

ii

TABLE OF CITED AUTHORITIES

Cases

Austin v. United States,

509 U.S. 602 (1993) ............................................... 12

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co. v. United States,

298 U.S. 349 (1936) ............................................. 7, 8

Beeman, et al., v. Muskegon County Treasurer,

No. 24-858 (cert. pending) ..................................... 10

Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc.,

467 U.S. 837 (1984) ........................................... 4, 10

Cooper Indus., Inc. v. Leatherman Tool Grp.,

532 U.S. 424 (2001) ............................................... 14

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org.,

597 U.S. 215 (2022) ................................................. 9

Garcia v. San Antonio Metro. Transit Auth.,

469 U.S. 528 (1985) ............................................... 11

Gulfstream Aerospace v. Mayacamus Corp.,

485 U.S. 271 (1988) ............................................... 10

Hamilton Bank of Johnson City,

473 U.S. 172 (1985) ................................................. 4

Hudson v. United States,

522 U.S. 93 (1997) ................................................. 10

Knick v. Twp. of Scott, Pennsylvania,

588 U.S. 180 (2019) ............................................. 4, 9

Koetter v. Manistee County Treasurer, et al.,

No. 24-1095 (cert. pending) ................................... 10

Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo,

603 U.S. 369 (2024) ........................................... 4, 10

iii

Monongahela Navigation Co. v. United States,

148 U.S. 312 (1893) ............................................. 7, 8

National League of Cities v. Usery,

426 U.S. 833 (1976) ............................................... 11

Nelson v. City of New York,

352 U.S. 103 (1956) ........................... 2-5, 7, 9-13, 15

Seaboard Air Line Railway Co. v. United States,

261 U.S. 299 (1923) ............................................. 7, 8

Tyler v. Hennepin County,

598 U.S. 631 (2023) ............................... 2-7, 9, 11-14

United States v. Bajakajian,

524 U.S. 321 (1998) ............................................... 14

United States v. Halper,

490 U.S. 435 (1989) ............................................... 10

Constitutional Provisions

U.S. Const. amend. V ......................................... 3, 7, 9

U.S. Const. amend. VIII ................................. 3, 12, 14

U.S. Const. amend. X ............................................... 11

Other Authorities

2 William Blackstone,

Commentaries on the Laws of England (1771) ...... 6

4 W. & M., 3 Eng. Stat. at Large 488 (1692) ............. 6

Mass. H.B. 4003 (2025) .............................................. 2

W. McKechnie, Magna Carta,

A Commentary on the Great Charter of Kind John

(rev. 2d ed. 1914) ..................................................... 6

1

IDENTITIES AND INTERESTS OF

AMICI CURIAE1

Pioneer Institute, Inc. (the “Pioneer Institute”)

and Greater Boston Legal Services, Inc. (“GBLS”)

respectfully submit this brief in support of Petitioners

Johanna McGee and Lillian Joseph.

The Pioneer Institute is a nonprofit,

nonpartisan entity that was founded in 1988 to

promote open and accountable government,

educational and economic opportunities, and freedom

of speech and association in Massachusetts and across

the country. The Pioneer Institute achieves its

mission by providing public policy research and

programs on a wide variety of issues affecting the

public interest, such as housing, education, and

healthcare. The Pioneer Institute is committed to the

foundational principle that the government must

protect, and not usurp, the property rights of its

citizens. To that end, the Pioneer Institute believes it

is crucial that the courts uphold a bedrock right set

forth in the U.S. Constitution: When the government

takes private property for a public purpose, it must

provide just compensation to the property owner. In

our ordered liberty, the right to just compensation is

automatic and unequivocal.

GBLS is a nonprofit, nonpartisan legal aid

organization based in Boston, Massachusetts. GBLS’

1 Counsel of record for all parties received notice of amici curiae’s

intent to file this brief. No counsel for any party authored this

brief in whole or in part. No person or entity other than amici

curiae and their counsel made a monetary contribution intended

to fund the preparation or submission of the brief.

2

mission is to provide critical legal advice and

representation to low-income individuals and families

in Boston and its surrounding cities and towns. GBLS

regularly represents individuals facing municipal

foreclosures due to unpaid taxes or fines. GBLS’

clients facing tax foreclosures are often elders or

individuals with disabilities who may face significant

challenges in complying with short deadlines and

interpreting complex or confusing communications.

The rights of such individuals are central to the

question presented in this case. And legislation alone

is insufficient to protect these vulnerable individuals.

Indeed, just last year, Massachusetts enacted

legislation reforming the Commonwealth’s municipal

tax foreclosure process in the wake of Tyler v.

Hennepin County, 598 U.S. 631 (2023)—yet the

Massachusetts legislature has already been presented

proposals to weaken homeowners’ rights. See, e.g.,

Mass. H.B. 4003 § 27 (2025) (bill that would modify

tax foreclosure timelines). Elders, individuals with

disabilities, and other homeowners facing tax

foreclosure are dependent on the courts and the U.S.

Constitution to protect the equity they have built in

their homes.

SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT

This Court should grant certiorari to consider

overruling Nelson v. City of New York, 352 U.S. 103

(1956). In Nelson, the Court upheld a city ordinance

permitting New York City to foreclose on property due

to unpaid water bills, and then retain 100% of the

proceeds from the sale of the property (or retain title

to the property) if the property owner did not fulfill

certain procedural requirements, even though the sale

3

proceeds (or value of the property) far exceeded the

amount of the debt.

Nelson is an aberration in the long history of

government takings jurisprudence. Anglo-American

law dating to at least the Magna Carta has limited the

government to take only so much property as would

satisfy the debt owed. By allowing the government to

retain a property owner’s assets far beyond what is

owed, Nelson conflicts with the Takings Clause of the

Fifth Amendment. The government’s retention of

surplus equity means the government can take

private property without paying any compensation,

let alone just compensation. For this reason alone,

Nelson should not stand.

Additionally, Nelson opens the door to an

unworkable patchwork approach to the recovery of

equity that the government has retained after a

taking and to which the government has no legal

right.

Under Nelson, state and municipal

governments are spurred to devise a panoply of

procedural requirements that will make it less and

less likely that homeowners will recover the surplus

equity to which they are constitutionally entitled.

Governments will regularly take “private property . . .

for public use, without just compensation,” in

violation of the Fifth Amendment.

The Court should also grant certiorari and

request that the parties brief whether the Michigan

tax foreclosure statute violates the Eighth

Amendment because the value of the property

retained bears "no correlation to any damages

sustained by" the government. Tyler v. Hennepin

4

County, 598 U.S. 631, 648-49 (2023) (Gorsuch, J.,

joined by Jackson, J., concurring) (cleaned up).

Nelson did not address this question. The Michigan

statute at issue here, like the ordinance at issue in

Nelson, allows violations of the Excessive Fines

Clause.

ARGUMENT

I.

This Court Should Grant Certiorari to

Consider Overruling Nelson v. City of New

York.

“Stare decisis is not an inexorable command.”

Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369, 407

(2024) (cleaned up). The doctrine “is at its weakest

when,” as here, this Court “interpret[s] the

Constitution . . . because only this Court or a

constitutional amendment can alter [the Court’s]

holdings.” Knick v. Twp. of Scott, Pennsylvania, 588

U.S. 180, 202–03 (2019) (overruling Williamson Cnty.

Reg'l Plan. Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson

City, 473 U.S. 172 (1985)). In particular, the Court

has held that a precedent’s weak reasoning, its

departure from clear precedent, and its general

“unworkability” all militate in favor of its overruling.

See, e.g., Loper Bright, 603 U.S. at 407 (overruling

Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc.,

467 U.S. 837 (1984), because of “the quality of the

precedent’s reasoning [and] the workability of the rule

it established”) (cleaned up); Knick, 588 U.S. at 203

(overruling Williamson County because of “the quality

of its reasoning, the workability of the rule it

established, [and] its consistency with other related

5

decisions”) (cleaned up). Nelson suffers from all these

fatal defects and should therefore be overruled.

A. Nelson Contravenes Centuries of

Anglo-American Law.

In

Nelson,

the

Court

upheld

the

constitutionality of a New York City ordinance

requiring a property owner with unpaid water bills to

request the surplus proceeds from the city’s

foreclosure sale of the owner’s property within 20 days

after the sale—or else forfeit the entirety of the

surplus equity. 352 U.S. at 105–06. Specifically,

Nelson holds that when a municipality forecloses on

and sells property to recover a tax debt, the

municipality may retain any surplus (the difference

between the amount of the debt and the sales

proceeds) if the property owner does not timely act to

recover the surplus. Id. at 110. Allowing the

government to retain the surplus is contrary to

centuries of Anglo-American law establishing that,

after taking private property, the government may

not retain assets in excess of the debt owed to it.

As this Court explained in Tyler v. Hennepin

County, the history of this obligation dates

at least as far back as

Runnymeade

in

1215,

where King John swore in

Magna Carta that when his

sheriff or bailiff came to

collect any debts owed him

from a dead man, they

could remove property

“until the debt which is

6

evident shall be fully paid

to us; and the residue shall

be left to the executors to

fulfil the will of the

deceased.”

598 U.S. at 639 (emphasis added) (quoting W.

McKechnie, Magna Carta, A Commentary on the

Great Charter of Kind John, ch. 26, p. 322 (rev. 2d ed.

1914)).

English and American law developed from

there, with both English law and the majority of

American States requiring the government to

automatically return any assets taken in excess of the

debt. See Tyler, 598 U.S. at 639–42. For example, in

the 17th Century, the English Crown had “the power

to seize and sell a taxpayer’s property to recover a tax

debt, but . . . any ‘Overplus’ from the sale [was

required to] ‘be immediately restored to the Owner.’”

Id. at 639 (quoting 4 W. & M., ch. 1, § 12, in 3 Eng.

Stat. at Large 488–489 (1692)). A century later,

English “common law demanded the same: If a tax

collector seized a taxpayer’s property, he was ‘bound

by an implied contract in law to restore [the property]

on payment of the debt, duty, and expenses, before the

time of sale; or, when sold, to render back the

overplus.’” Tyler, 598 U.S. at 639–40 (quoting 2

William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of

England 453 (1771)).

American States followed this tradition. Tyler,

598 U.S. at 640–42 (tracking States’ laws from 1798

through 2023). As of 2023, “[t]hirty-six States and the

Federal Government require[d] that the excess value

7

be returned to the taxpayer.” Id. at 642; see also

Petition for a Writ of Certiorari (“Petition”) at 16

(discussing “the unbroken line of cases from early in

the nation’s history until the current decade,” in other

areas of the Court’s takings jurisprudence, under

which the government has the affirmative, categorical

duty to pay just compensation for taking private

property).

Before Nelson, a few States attempted to retain

tax sale surpluses, but these forays were “short lived.”

Tyler, 598 U.S. at 641–42 (explaining, for instance,

that “Mississippi’s highest court promptly struck

down its law for violating the Due Process and

Takings Clauses of the Mississippi Constitution”).

Nelson, however, opened the door for municipalities to

retain a surplus by imposing onerous requirements on

property owners as a precondition to securing the

return of their surplus equity.

Imposing these sorts of obligations on property

owners violates the well-established principle that

when the government takes private property for

public use, its payment of just compensation is

mandatory. Indeed, the Fifth Amendment commands

that just compensation be paid for the taking of

private property. See U.S. Const. amend. V (“[N]or

shall private property be taken for public use, without

just compensation.”). This Court has repeatedly

reaffirmed the rule that the government is required to

pay just compensation. See Petition at 16–17 (citing

cases). Key among this Court’s precedents are

Monongahela Navigation Co. v. United States, 148

U.S. 312 (1893), Seaboard Air Line Railway Co. v.

United States, 261 U.S. 299 (1923), and Baltimore &

8

Ohio Railroad Co. v. United States, 298 U.S. 349

(1936).

In Monongahela, the Court interpreted the

plain language of the Takings Clause to mean that

“[t]here can . . . be no doubt that the compensation

must be a full and perfect equivalent for the property

taken . . .” 148 U.S. at 326 (emphasis added). In

Seaboard Air, the Court stated:

It is obvious that the

owner’s right to just

compensation cannot be

made to depend upon state

statutory provisions. The

Constitution

safeguards

the

right

...

The

requirement

that

‘just

compensation’ shall be paid

is

comprehensive

and

includes all elements and

no specific command to

include

interest

is

necessary when interest or

its equivalent is a part of

such compensation.

261 U.S. at 306. And similarly, in Baltimore & Ohio

Railroad, the Court was clear that “[t]he just

compensation clause may not be evaded or impaired

by any form of legislation.” 298 U.S. at 368 (emphasis

added).

This Court’s precedents—which emerge from

and exemplify centuries of history and tradition—

establish that the government has the affirmative and

9

unqualified duty to return to a property owner any

surplus resulting from the foreclosure sale of the

owner’s property. See Tyler, 598 U.S. at 639–43. This

self-executing and bright-line duty should prohibit

any state or local government from forcing the

property owner to “earn” just compensation by

jumping through procedural hoops. See Knick, 588

U.S. at 185.

But Nelson allows exactly that. It permits an

end-run around the Fifth Amendment by tying the

right to just compensation to deadlines, or unyielding

and illogical mailing requirements, set by

municipalities that stand to profit if a property owner

cannot comply. See Petition at 7–10. Nelson breaks

from centuries of Anglo-American law dictating that

the government is not entitled to retain private

property—including the surplus from tax sales—

without paying just compensation to the owner.

Nelson should be overturned.

B. Nelson Is Unworkable.

Beyond contravening the plain language of the

Takings Clause, the centuries-old history and

tradition of Anglo-American property law, and this

Court’s clear precedents, Nelson is proving to be

entirely unworkable in its application. This type of

chaotic unworkability warrants overturning Nelson to

avoid leaving the courts and the country with a poorly

reasoned decision that influences future legislation.

See Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., 597 U.S.

215, 264 (2022) (“[W]hen one of our constitutional

decisions goes astray, the country is usually stuck

with the bad decision unless we correct our own

mistake. . . . [I]n appropriate circumstances we must

10

be willing to reconsider and, if necessary, overrule

constitutional decisions.”).

Nelson opened a Pandora’s box: a potentially

endless assortment of procedural requirements across

the nation, imposed at all levels of state government,

which property owners with tax debts must fulfill to

“perfect” their (automatic) right to just compensation

for the surpluses resulting from the government’s

foreclosure sales of their properties.2 This potentially

unlimited variety of procedural burdens has

generated, and is likely to continue generating, a

potentially unlimited variety of fact patterns—each of

which will require extensive judicial scrutiny, under

procedural due process, to decide whether the

government’s requirements for claiming the surplus

proceeds are fair and reasonable under the

circumstances of the particular case. “A rule of law

that is so wholly in the eye of the beholder . . . invites

different results in like cases and is therefore

arbitrary in practice.” Loper Bright, 603 U.S. at 408

(overruling Chevron because its two-step test was

unworkable) (cleaned up).3

2 In addition to this case, see, for example, Koetter v. Manistee

County Treasurer, et al., No. 24-1095 (cert. pending); Beeman, et

al., v. Muskegon County Treasurer, No. 24-858 (cert. pending).

See also Petition at 1 & n.1 (discussing four other states imposing

complex procedural requirements for property owner to obtain

surplus proceeds from foreclosure sale).

3 See also Hudson v. United States, 522 U.S. 93, 101–02 (1997)

(overruling United States v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435 (1989), because

“Halper’s deviation from longstanding double jeopardy principles

was ill considered[,] . . . [and] Halper’s test for determining

whether a particular sanction is ‘punitive,’ and thus subject to

the strictures of the Double Jeopardy Clause, has proved

unworkable.”); Gulfstream Aerospace v. Mayacamus Corp., 485

11

Nelson is unworkable in its application and has

engendered a theoretically endless line of cases that

will test the limits of the Court’s procedural due

process jurisprudence and yield arbitrary results. The

Takings Clause could not have been intended to

produce such an undesirable and unworkable

outcome. Nelson should be overruled.

C. Tyler Distinguished Nelson Without

Reaffirming It.

Nothing in Tyler prevents the Court from

overruling Nelson. The Court in Tyler “readily

distinguished” Nelson on the ground that Tyler

involved the government’s unconditional refusal to

pay the property owner the surplus proceeds, while

Nelson involved the government’s conditional refusal

to do so. Tyler, 598 U.S. at 643. Because of this

distinction, the Court did not have to decide whether

Nelson remained good law. Therefore, the Court’s

discussion of Nelson in Tyler should not be

misinterpreted as a reaffirmation of Nelson. Tyler

essentially left that issue for another day. That day

U.S. 271, 283 (1988) (abrogating Court’s own rule of decision,

announced in earlier cases, that allowed for appealability of

district court order denying motion to stay or dismiss federal

suit, due to similar pending state court suit, because “the rule is

unsound in theory, unworkable and arbitrary in practice, and

unnecessary to achieve any legitimate goals.”); Garcia v. San

Antonio Metro. Transit Auth., 469 U.S. 528, 546–47 (1985)

(overruling National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833

(1976), because “[w]e . . . reject, as unsound in principle and

unworkable in practice, a rule of state immunity from federal

regulation [under the Tenth Amendment] that turns on a judicial

appraisal of whether a particular governmental function is

‘integral’ or ‘traditional.’ Any such rule leads to inconsistent

results. . . .”).

12

has now arrived, and this Court should grant

certiorari to consider overruling Nelson.

II.

This Court Should Grant Certiorari to

Consider Whether the Michigan Statute

Violates the Excessive Fines Clause.

This Court should grant certiorari for an

additional reason: to decide whether the Michigan

statute—which permits the government to retain

staggering surpluses far beyond the amounts of the

debts at issue—runs afoul of the Excessive Fines

Clause of the Eighth Amendment. Two Justices of

this Court have already considered how the Excessive

Fines Clause might apply in circumstances similar to

those presented here. See Tyler, 598 U.S. at 648–50

(Gorsuch, J., joined by Jackson, J., concurring). The

Court should grant certiorari to decide the significant

issues raised by those Justices.

In a concurring opinion in Tyler, Justice

Gorsuch, joined by Justice Jackson, addressed

whether the Excessive Fines Clause might apply to a

tax-foreclosure scheme allowing the government to

keep far more than it is owed. The concurring opinion

observed that “[s]o long as [a] law ‘cannot fairly be

said solely to serve a remedial purpose,’ the Excessive

Fines Clause applies.” Id. at 648 (quoting Austin v.

United States, 509 U.S. 602, 610 (1993)). Further, it

is not “appropriate to label sanctions as ‘remedial’

when . . . 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. (quoting Austin, 509 U.S. at 621–

22 & n.14).

13

Applying that reasoning here, a tax foreclosure

scheme like Michigan’s is punitive, not remedial,

because the retained equity bears no relationship to

the harm caused to the government by the unpaid

taxes or fees. Indeed, “[e]conomic 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.” Id. at 649–50.

The Court has never addressed whether the

equity retained after a government forecloses on the

debtor’s property is an excessive fine. Nelson does not

analyze the issue, and the property owners there did

not raise it. See Nelson, 352 U.S. at 109 (property

owners argued that they had been “deprived of

property without due process of law or ha[d] suffered

a taking without just compensation”). While the

Court stated that (other than notice issues) “nothing

in the Federal Constitution” prevented the

government from retaining a post-foreclosure surplus,

id. at 110, this broad language did not reflect the

arguments raised or the issues addressed in the

Court’s opinion.

The Court in Nelson did not

discuss—or even mention—the Excessive Fines

Clause.4

4 Had the Court applied the Excessive Fines Clause, the result in

Nelson might (and should) have been different. Nelson involved

two parcels. Nelson, 352 U.S. at 104. The first parcel had unpaid

water bills totaling $65 and was sold by the City for $7,000, with

“the City retaining all the proceeds.” Id. at 105–06. Thus, for

the first parcel, the City retained 107.7 times the amount of the

debt. The second parcel had unpaid water bills totaling $814.50

and was assessed at $46,000; the City acquired title to the parcel

and retained it as of the date of the opinion in Nelson. Id. at 106.

Thus, for the second parcel, the City retained 56.48 times the

14

Nor did this Court address the Excessive Fines

Clause in Tyler. See Tyler, 598 U.S. at 648 (Gorsuch,

J., joined by Jackson, J., concurring) (“Given its

Takings Clause holding, the Court understandably

decline[d] 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.”). The issue remains both

undecided and critical.

This Court should grant certiorari to address

whether and how the Excessive Fines Clause applies

to tax foreclosure schemes in which the government is

permitted to retain surplus equity in a property,

however substantial and however disconnected from

the amount owed. The Michigan statute, whether

analyzed through the lens of the Excessive Fines

Clause or the Takings Clause, violates the rights of

vulnerable property owners and the guarantees of the

Constitution.

CONCLUSION

This Court should grant Johanna McGee and

Lillian Joseph’s petition for a writ of certiorari to

amount of the debt. These fines were grossly disproportional to

the debt owed and, therefore, unconstitutional. See United

States v. Bajakajian, 524 U.S. 321, 334 (1998) (holding “that a

punitive forfeiture violates the Excessive Fines Clause if it is

grossly disproportional to the gravity of a defendant’s offense”);

Cooper Indus., Inc. v. Leatherman Tool Grp., 532 U.S. 424, 434–

35 (2001) (identifying factors courts consider in determining

whether a fine is grossly disproportionate and, therefore,

excessive).

15

consider overturning Nelson v. City of New York and

applying the Excessive Fines Clause.

October 6, 2025

Respectfully submitted,

BENJAMIN G. ROBBINS

FRANK J. BAILEY

Pioneer New England

Legal Foundation

185 Devonshire Street,

Suite 1101

Boston, MA 02110

ben.robbins@pioneerlegal.org

frank.bailey@pioneerlegal.org

JOSEPH P. DAVIS III

Counsel of Record

JULIA FROST-DAVIES

ALISON T. HOLDWAY

TUNG-YU CHARLIE LIU

Greenberg Traurig, LLP

One International Place,

Suite 2000

Boston, MA 02110

Telephone: 617.310.6000

davisjo@gtlaw.com

julia.frostdavies@gtlaw.com

alison.holdway@gtlaw.com

charlie.liu@gtlaw.com

ILANA B. GELFMAN

TODD S. KAPLAN

Greater Boston Legal Services

197 Friend Street

Boston, MA 02114

igelfman@gbls.org

tkaplan@gbls.org

Counsel for Amici Curiae