Extracted from Law360
Unclaimed property took center stage on the first day of the U.S. Supreme Court term when the court heard the long-awaited oral arguments in the consolidated cases of Delaware v. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Arkansas v. Delaware — commonly referred to as the MoneyGram case.[1]
The consolidated cases involve Delaware's response to multistate claims to funds representing the official checks issued by MoneyGram International Inc on the basis that they qualify as money orders or "similar written instruments" under the 1974 federal Disposition of Abandoned Money Orders and Traveler's Checks Act.[2] and are subject to the statute's priority rules, which assign escheat jurisdiction to the states where the instruments were purchased.
MoneyGram issues official checks, a product that did not exist in 1974, including "agent check money orders," "agent checks," and "teller's checks."
For years, MoneyGram escheated funds received for such uncashed checks to Delaware under the common-law escheatment secondary rule, which provides that if the last known address of the owner of property is unknown, unclaimed property is to be reported to the state of the issuer's place of domicile.
Thirty states aligned against Delaware, claiming that the federal statute governs the treatment of official checks and that they are entitled to such property if it becomes abandoned if purchased in their states.
Unclaimed property has become a high-stakes issue for states, particularly Delaware, which has long relied on abandoned property to fund its essential functions and operations.
Since most unclaimed property is never claimed by its owners, a substantial portion of the monies collected from holders of such property effectively becomes revenue to the states without the need to impose politically unpopular taxes.
Abandoned property has been included as a separate line item in Delaware's general fund revenue since 1990, when it generated just 3.1% of Delaware's revenue, increasing to 15.7% of the state's revenue in 2013.[3]
In 2021, $448.6 million was reported by Delaware from unclaimed property, the third-largest source of revenue after individual income tax and corporate franchise tax. As the states informed the court, more than $250 million is at issue from unclaimed official checks issued by MoneyGram.
Based on the oral argument, the court appears poised to side with the states aligned against Delaware, but the nuances of the court's reasoning will likely have a broader sweep than the specific MoneyGram instruments at the heart of this multistate jurisdictional scrum.
However, on October 26, the special master issued an order that may provide an impetus for the court to except teller checks from the statute, while holding that agent money orders and agent checks are covered by the statute. The special master has invited the parties to submit comments.
Common Law Jurisdictional Rules Versus the Federal Law's Legislative Override
Although competing claims over abandoned property do not generally occur, potential conflicts have arisen with intangible property based on the variety of connections a state may assert with the owner, the holder or the property itself.
In response to such conflicts, the Supreme Court adopted rules for determining which state is entitled to receive unclaimed intangible property: The state with the primary jurisdictional claim is the state of the owner's last known address, and the state with the secondary claim is the state of domicile of the holder of the property.[4]
Application of the secondary rule as applied to Western Union money orders was challenged by Pennsylvania in Pennsylvania v. New York.
In that case, Pennsylvania argued that the rule set forth in Texas should not apply to money orders because Western Union's records infrequently reflected the purchaser or the recipient of the money order and, accordingly, the state of domicile would reap a windfall.
Instead, Pennsylvania argued that the property should escheat to the state where the money order was purchased or, if unknown, to the state where it was delivered.
In its 1972 opinion, the Supreme Court rejected Pennsylvania's argument, stating "we do not regard the likelihood of a 'windfall' for New York as a sufficient reason for carving out this exception to the Texas rule."[5] The court noted that the rejected argument would undermine the clarity of the scheme set forth in Texas.
Congress, at the urging of the states, overruled Pennsylvania v. New York by enacting the Disposition of Abandoned Money Orders and Traveler's Checks Act in 1974.
The statute provides different jurisdictional rules than those provided by the court in its 1965 Texas v. New Jersey decision.
The first priority rule is that funds from "a money order, traveler's check, or other similar written instrument (other than a third party bank check) on which a banking or financial organization or a business association is directly liable" is to be turned over to the state of purchase if the issuer's books and records disclose that state — which is typically the case for issuers of these instruments.[6]
The language of the statute confirms that the intent of Congress was to permit states where the money orders and traveler's check purchasers are based to receive "the proceeds of such instruments in the event of abandonment" as a matter of equity.[7]
The U.S. Senate's report for the federal bill provided that it was "designed to assure a more equitable distribution among the various States of the proceeds of the subject instruments," rather "than continuing to permit a relatively few States to claim these sums solely because the seller is domiciled in that State, even though the entire transaction took place in another State."[8]
The Cases' Procedural Path
On March 29, 2017, the court appointed Special Master Judge Pierre Leval in this Article III original jurisdiction case. On July 23, 2021, after hearing from the parties and considering the motions for summary judgment, Leval issued a 93-page first interim report concluding that MoneyGram's official checks fell within the scope of the statute, and that the states where the disputed Instruments were purchased "have the power under their own laws to take custody of the proceeds of presumptively abandoned Disputed Instruments purchased in their respective states."[9]
Delaware submitted exceptions to the special master's report and requested that the court reject his recommendations. On Feb. 22, the court agreed to hear oral argument, which was set for the first day of the term, Oct. 3.
Highlights from the Oral Argument
The oral argument engaged the entire bench, with every justice asking questions of counsel.
Substance vs. Labels
Justice Clarence Thomas was the first to jump in, asking counsel for Delaware, Neal Katyal, whether changing the label of the disputed instruments would solve the issue. Katyal appeared to concede that labels matter and that if the instruments were called "money orders," they would come within the scope of the statute.
Katyal also acknowledged that the distinctions between money orders and the disputed instruments sound formalistic, and suggested that the states could cure the so-called informational hiccup by requiring banks dealing with MoneyGram to collect and provide address information so that the primary rule, rather than the secondary rule, would apply.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson challenged the argument that Congress was concerned with collecting addresses rather than inequitable escheatment given the fact that the statute intentionally overrides the rules relied upon by Delaware's counsel.
Justice Neil Gorsuch homed in on what constituted "other similar instruments," and Katyal conceded that substance, rather than labels, would control the analysis, yet said "labels matter because they matter."
Justice Elena Kagan attempted to address the conflict between labels and substance with Katyal, stating that labels matter because the statute specifically named products, and substance comes into play in determining whether a product constitutes a "similar written instrument."
Similar Written Instrument Under the Statute
Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested that in determining a similar written instrument, features other than those suggested by Katyal — i.e., disputed instruments can only be purchased at banks, you must have a bank account to purchase them, and they are signed by the bank — should be considered, such as whether the instrument was a prepaid money-transmission product, whether the address of the purchaser is unknown and the windfall-purpose is involved.
Katyal responded that instruments with the characteristics proposed by Justice Kavanaugh would "blow up the statute" to include products Congress did not intend to cover.
Nicholas Bronni, the solicitor general of Arkansas, argued on behalf of the states aligned against Delaware that the disputed instruments "function precisely like other money orders but are marketed differently" and urged that "marketing strategies do not define commercial instruments and ... don't justify the $250 million windfall [to Delaware]."
Katyal alternatively proposed that even if the court did not accept the position that the disputed instruments were not money orders or other similar instruments, the disputed instruments were third-party bank checks, a stated statutory exception. Bronni retorted that MoneyGram was not a third party and the official checks were not bank checks, hence the statute's third-party bank check exception was inapplicable.
Slippery Slope, Parade of Horribles
Justice Thomas asked Bronni to address the so-called parade of horribles, with Chief Justice John Roberts focusing on why MoneyGram did not obtain address information collected by the selling financial institutions.
Bronni argued that when the statute was being considered, Congress understood that address collection and maintenance was burdensome, regardless of the value of the instruments.
Justice Roberts suggested that the states could simply require that MoneyGram obtain address information and suggested that the differences between money orders and the disputed instruments went beyond marketing-strategy differences and, significantly, that the disputed instruments are high value and are not anonymous.
Justice Kagan and Justice Samuel Alito asked about the scope of similar written instruments, such as prepaid cash cards, gift cards and gift certificates, with Bronni seeming to acknowledge that these would not be covered by the statute.
Damages v. Windfall
Justice Gorsuch asked about money damages claimed by the states and what would permit such relief. Bronni tried to deflect the question on the basis that the issue of damages was being addressed since Leval bifurcated the proceedings. But Bronni reminded the court that the money was not Delaware's since unclaimed property is held by states in trust for the property owners.
Justice Gorsuch appeared to recognize that whether there is an implied cause of action for the states to obtain relief from Delaware would need to be dealt with by the special master if the states were to be successful.
Easy Fix
On rebuttal, Katyal suggested that states should employ the easy fix of requiring that MoneyGram collect the address information, and stated that if the states prevail, they would be making the place of purchase the primary jurisdictional rule, rather than the last known address of the owner, and suggested that the court leave the resolution of the issue to Congress or the states.
Some Takeaways and Handicapping the Outcome
This is a big-dollar issue for states even though in virtually all states unclaimed property is held in trust and technically never truly escheats to the state.
States routinely publicize a few examples of unclaimed property being reunited with their owners, however, as is evident from states' continuing attempts to expand the types of property subject to escheat, decrease dormancy periods, hire contract auditors, and impose interest and penalties for late reporting, states have a clear — and arguably cynical —eye toward retaining a windfall rather than reuniting property with owners.
The windfall question becomes crucial when, as in these cases, the vast majority of money orders and similar bearer instruments are never returned to the parties that purchased them or that are listed as payees.
The court seemed fully aware that the federal statute was passed to avert a single-state windfall for specified instruments, and did not seem inclined to hand Delaware such a windfall given the act's inclusion of both money orders and "similar instruments" within the scope of Congress' override of the court's common-law jurisdictional rules.
Indeed, and consistent with its prior affirmations, the court's narrow focus on what constitutes a money order under the act signals that it will not consider the possibility of revising the federal common-law jurisdictional rules set out in the court's three seminal cases: Texas v. New Jersey, Pennsylvania v. New York, and its 1993 decision in Delaware v. New York.
The place-of-purchase jurisdictional standard, which was rejected by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit's 2012 decision in N.J. Retail Merchants Association v. Sidamon-Eristoff, for gift cards, would continue to be restricted to instruments covered by the statute — whatever the court decides they include.
The court certainly entertained the slippery-slope question of whether a similar written instrument could include cashier's checks, gift cards and such — and this issue was also raised by amici. But it appears to us that the court will figure out how best to circumscribe the parameters of the act without expanding it beyond its reasonable contours.
The court may provide some additional guidance about how the "similar written instruments" language of the statute is to be interpreted, and may use the statute's stated legislative intent as a guide.
Significantly, the special master's decision to issue the Oct. 26 order revising his earlier recommendations to the court by determining that teller's checks are excluded from the statute, suggests he may now view teller's checks as third-party bank checks, which are excepted from statutory coverage.
While the court might welcome the opportunity to split the baby, by treating teller's checks differently than agent checks or agent check money orders, the court has in the past rejected special master recommendations in escheat matters, e.g., in Delaware v. New York.
Finally, although Justice Gorsuch raised the issue of damages given the custodial nature of virtually all states' unclaimed property laws, the question is really how to distribute the funds among the various states; no state should be damaged by having to return to another state property that is held for the benefit of true owners.
However, if the court rules for the states and requires application of the statute's place-of-purchase jurisdictional standard, the court is likely to want to restrict the lookback to avoid disrupting Delaware's fisc.
While we expect the court to rule for the states—at least with respect to agent checks and agent check money orders — and for the damages issue to be remanded to Judge Leval, as American baseball legend Yogi Berra said: "It ain't over till it's over."
[1] Dkt. Nos. 22-145 and 20-146.
[2] 12 U.S.C. § 2501-03.
[3] Delaware Fiscal Notebook 2021 Edition, https://financefiles.delaware.gov/Fiscal_Notebook/2021/2021-Fiscal-Notebook.pdf at 31/204. Prior to 1990, revenue from abandoned property was included in "Other."
[4] Texas v. New Jersey , 379 U.S. 674 (1965) (set out the first and second priority rules based on "ease of administration and equity"). See also Delaware v. New York, 507 U.S. 490 (1993) (applying Texas v. New Jersey priority rules and rejecting special master's recommendation that the court deviate from those rules and escheat unclaimed interest and dividends based on the principal domestic executive officers).
[5] Pennsylvania v. New York , 407 U.S. 206 (1972)
[6] 12 U.S.C. § 2503(3).
[7] 12 U.S.C. § 2501(3).
[8] S. Rep. No. 93-505, at 1, 6 (1973).
[9] Delaware v. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Dkt. Nos. 22O145 & 22O146, First Interim Report of the Special Master at 93. For a discussion of the draft first interim report, see our advisory, "Supreme Court–Appointed Special Master Applies Place-of-Purchase Jurisdictional Rule to MoneyGram's Unclaimed 'Official Checks'," available at https://www.alston.com/en/insights/publications/2021/05/supreme-court-moneygrams-unclaimed-official-checks.