Page:Delaware v. Pennsylvania (2023).pdf/2

2 common law. The FDA provides that “a money order … or other similar written instrument (other than a third party bank check)” should generally escheat to “the State in which such … instrument was purchased.” 12 U. S. C. §2503. This Court consolidated the actions and appointed a Special Master. In his initial report, the Special Master concluded that the Disputed Instruments were covered by the FDA. Following oral argument in this Court, he reassessed that decision and issued a second report, concluding that many of the Disputed Instruments were or could be “third party bank check[s],” which are excluded from the FDA and would generally escheat to Delaware under the circumstances.

Second, due to the recordkeeping practices of the entity issuing and holding on to the prepaid funds, abandoned money orders and the Disputed Instruments both escheat inequitably under the Court’s common-law rules. The FDA was passed to abrogate this Court’s common-law precedents precisely because, for certain instruments like money orders, the entities selling such products often did not keep adequate records of creditor address information as a matter of business practice, which meant that the common law’s secondary rule mandating escheatment to the State of incorporation always applied. The FDA prevents this “windfall” to the State of incorporation by instead adopting a place-of-purchase escheatment rule that distributes escheats “as