UMATILLA COUNTY — Umatilla County agreed Wednesday, July 15, to join the other 35 Oregon counties in legal defense against a potential class-action civil rights lawsuit that claims the state’s current method for the sale of foreclosed properties is unconstitutional.

According to the lawsuit filed in Deschutes County Circuit Court on June 25, Oregon counties are currently able to make a profit off of selling foreclosed properties that exceed the amount of delinquent property taxes owned in the first place.

“The plan of the county is to jointly respond to the lawsuit and hire one counsel to represent all the counties,” Umatilla County Counsel Doug Olsen said at a July 15 board of commissioners meeting.

The Umatilla County Commissioners unanimously approved joining in the legal defense, which could cost up to $10,000 if not more.

“The plan for the payment of the expenses is to have an equal amount up to $10,000 per county, and then if it’s more than that for the county it would be based on population,” Olsen said.

If the legal defense costs exceed that $10,000, Umatilla County will be responsible for approximately 2% of any additional costs under this agreement.

Tarressa Hutchinson, 19, of Mesa, Arizona, and Timothy Waterman, who owned land in Lane County, are the two plaintiffs currently named in the lawsuit, though the filing intends to have them recognized as a “class” of people.

“It could turn out to be a modest class. It could be quite a large class,” Matthew Hurst, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told the Bend Bulletin in June. “It’s difficult to say what’s been going on and what they’ve done. We don’t know.”

The lawsuit alleges that Deschutes County profited more than $65,000 after the sale of a housing unit in May 2019 owned in Bend by Hutchinson’s late mother, who died in 2007 and passed on her entire estate to Hutchinson, who was a minor at the time. The delinquent taxes and fees owed on the property at the time amounted to $4,172.

It also alleges that Lane County profited more than $55,000 from the sale of Waterman’s property in 2017, despite him owing just $2,033 in taxes and fees at the time.

“We think that this is an issue of fundamental fairness as well as constitutional law,” Hurst told the Bend Bulletin. “There’s a point where you cross the line between getting back what you’re owed and taking something that’s not yours.”

Umatilla County was served as a defendant in the lawsuit last week, Olsen said, and no response to the complaints outlined within it has been filed yet.

Hurst told the Bend Bulletin that recent rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court have strengthened property rights and provided a better understanding of what the living document protects.

Reform has taken hold in some states. Courts in Vermont, New Hampshire and Mississippi have struck down similar system, and the Michigan Supreme Court is currently considering doing so.