In the 1980 case of Rosewell v. LaSalle National Bank, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Cook County, Illinois. The issue at hand was whether a state tax system that required taxpayers to pay their taxes before they could challenge them in court violated due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The LaSalle National Bank argued it did, as it forced taxpayers to essentially lend money to the government without interest while waiting for their legal challenges to be resolved. The Supreme Court disagreed with this argument and upheld Illinois' "pay first, litigate later" system by a vote of 6-3. It found that since there were adequate procedures available for challenging tax assessments (including an appeal process), and because any delay in receiving refunds was not unreasonable or caused by state action but rather by judicial backlog, there was no violation of due process rights.

In the dissenting opinion for Rosewell v. LaSalle National Bank, Justice William J. Brennan Jr., joined by Justices Potter Stewart and Thurgood Marshall, argued that the majority's decision to uphold Illinois' property tax system was inconsistent with previous Supreme Court rulings on due process rights. They contended that a delay of up to two years before taxpayers could challenge their assessments in court effectively denied them a meaningful opportunity to be heard. The justices also criticized the majority for ignoring evidence suggesting that Cook County's assessment procedures were fundamentally flawed and systematically biased against certain types of properties. Furthermore, they disagreed with the majority’s view that state courts should have final say over federal constitutional questions involving state taxation schemes.