4
DELAWARE v. PENNSYLVANIA
Syllabus
party bank check and thereby excluded from the FDA. The Special Master did not explain why Congress would use an amorphous term to describe well-known financial products, while also calling out other well-known instruments, such as money orders, by name in the FDA. Nor did the Special Master explain how bank liability relates to the FDA’s escheatment rules in any meaningful way. Bank liability also does not seem to be a tipping point for triggering an exclusion from the FDA given that banks can be liable on money orders and those products are expressly covered by the statute. Finally, the legislative history of the FDA does not support the contention that the Disputed Instruments constitute “third party bank check[s].” The well-documented circumstances surrounding the insertion of the phrase into §2503 support the conclusion that, whatever the intended meaning of “third party bank check,” it cannot be read broadly to exclude from the FDA large swaths of prepaid instruments that escheat inequitably due to the business practices of the company holding the funds. Pp. 17–22.
Exceptions to Special Master’s First Interim Report overruled; First Interim Report and order adopted to the extent consistent with this opinion; and cases remanded.
