Page:Delaware v. Pennsylvania (2023).pdf/13

Rh excluded from the FDA, which means that, when abandoned, they would generally escheat to Delaware under the common law. Both parties submitted exceptions to the Special Master’s Second Interim Report.

The parties are at odds over whether the Disputed Instruments qualify as “money order[s]” or “other similar written instrument[s] (other than a third party bank check)” within the meaning of the FDA, §2503—a determination that, for present purposes, establishes whether the FDA or the common law governs their escheatment when abandoned. We conclude that the Disputed Instruments are covered by the FDA because they are “other similar written instrument[s],” and neither Delaware nor the Special Master has convinced us that they are “third party bank check[s].” Ibid.

Because the plain text of the FDA applies to not only money orders and traveler’s checks but also written instruments that are “similar” to those financial products, ibid., we need not determine whether the Disputed Instruments are money orders; a finding that they are similar to money orders is sufficient to bring them within the reach of the statute (so long as they are not third party bank checks). We determine what “similar” entails in light of the FDA’s “text and context,” Southwest Airlines Co. v. Saxon, 596 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (slip op., at 7), not in the abstract. And