Delaware v. Pennsylvania

Summary

Recommendations in the Special Master’s First Interim Report concluding that the escheatment of certain financial instruments relevant to this case should follow the Federal Disposition Act are adopted to the extent they are consistent with the Court’s opinion, and Delaware’s objections are overruled.

Text

PRELIMINARY PRINT 
Volume 598 U. S. Part 1 
Pages 115–141 
OFFICIAL REPORTS 
OF 
THE SUPREME COURT 
February 28, 2023 
REBECCA A. WOMELDORF 
reporter of decisions 
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NOTICE: This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before 
the bound volume is published. Users are requested to notify the Reporter 
of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C. 20543, 
[email protected], of any typographical or other formal errors.

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OCTOBER TERM, 2022 115 
Syllabus 
DELAWARE v. PENNSYLV ANIA et al. 
on exceptions to reports of special master 
No. 145, Orig. Argued October 3, 2022—Decided February 28, 2023* 
A State may take custody of abandoned property located within its bor-
ders; this process is commonly known as “escheatment.” When aban-
doned property is intangible, however, the lack of a physical location 
means that multiple States may have arguable claims. In these cases, 
the question is which States have the right to escheat two fnancial 
products sold by banks on behalf of MoneyGram: Agent Checks and 
Teller's Checks (collectively, Disputed Instruments). Operating much 
like money orders, both products are prepaid fnancial instruments used 
to transfer funds to a named payee. When these prepaid instruments 
are not presented for payment within a certain period of time, they are 
deemed abandoned, and, currently, MoneyGram applies the common-law 
escheatment practices outlined in Texas v. New Jersey, 379 U. S. 674. 
There the Court established the rule that the proceeds of abandoned 
fnancial products should escheat to the State of the creditor's last 
known address, id., at 680–681, or where such records are not kept, to 
the State in which the company holding the funds is incorporated, id., 
at 682. Because MoneyGram does not, as a matter of regular business 
practice, keep records of creditor addresses for the two products at issue 
in these cases, it applies the secondary common-law rule and transmits 
the abandoned proceeds to its State of incorporation, i. e., Delaware. 
Multiple States invoked this Court's original jurisdiction to determine 
whether the abandoned proceeds of the Disputed Instruments are gov-
erned by the Disposition of Abandoned Money Orders and Traveler's 
Checks Act (Federal Disposition Act or FDA) rather than the common 
law. The FDA provides that “a money order . . . or other similar writ-
ten 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 
*Together with No. 146, Orig., Arkansas et al. v. Delaware, also on 
exceptions to reports of Special Master.

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 DELAWARE v. PENNSYL V ANIA 
Syllabus 
be “third party bank check[s],” which are excluded from the FDA and 
would generally escheat to Delaware under the circumstances. 
Held: The Disputed Instruments are suffciently “similar” to a money 
order to fall within the FDA. Pp. 127–141. 
(a) The parties disagree whether the Disputed Instruments qualify 
as “money order[s]” or “other similar written instrument[s] (other than 
a third party bank check)” under § 2503. Because a fnding that the 
Disputed Instruments are similar to money orders would be suffcient 
to bring the Disputed Instruments within § 2503's reach, the Court need 
not decide whether they actually are money orders. Instead, the Court 
concludes that the Disputed Instruments are suffciently “similar” to 
money orders so as to fall within the “other similar written instrument” 
category of the FDA. Pp. 127–134. 
(1) The Disputed Instruments share two relevant similarities with 
money orders. First, they are similar in function and operation. Al-
though the FDA does not defne “money order,” a variety of dictionary 
defnitions contemporaneous with the Act's passage universally defne a 
“money order” as a prepaid fnancial instrument used to transmit a spec-
ifed amount of money to a named payee. And this Court's common-
law precedents—the backdrop against which the FDA was enacted— 
are in accord with that defnition. In addition, the features that money 
orders share with the Disputed Instruments, e. g., the fact that they are 
prepaid, make them likely to escheat, and thus implicate the FDA in the 
frst place. 
Second, due to the recordkeeping practices of the entity issuing and 
holding on to the prepaid funds, abandoned money orders and the Dis-
puted 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 a matter of 
equity among the several States.” §§ 2501(3), 2503. Because Money-
Gram does not keep records of creditor addresses as a matter of busi-
ness practice, application of the common law to the Disputed Instru-
ments would produce the same inequitable result that the FDA is 
designed to remedy. Pp. 127–132. 
(2) Delaware's contrary arguments are unpersuasive. First, the 
State contends that “money order” refers to a specifc commercial prod-

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Syllabus 
uct labeled as such on the instrument and sold to low-income individuals 
in small amounts. Unable to present a dictionary defnition that cabins 
the term as described, Delaware attempts to highlight the various ways 
in which the Disputed Instruments differ from money orders. But Del-
aware never explains how the differences are relevant to the assessment 
of similarity for FDA purposes or how such differences undermine the 
similarities previously outlined above. 
In an effort to make those proffered differences more relevant, Dela-
ware asserts that the FDA was actually concerned with dissuading 
States from adopting costly recordkeeping requirements that would 
then be passed on to consumers. Delaware argues that the Disputed 
Instruments are unlike money orders in that the consumers of the Dis-
puted Instruments are typically more capable of absorbing the cost of 
recordkeeping requirements. The text of the FDA, however, does not 
support this argument. 
Finally, Delaware's suggestion that § 2503 be read narrowly to avoid 
creating surplusage and sweeping in all sorts of unintended fnancial 
products goes too far. While there is some merit to Delaware's concern 
about a broad defnition of “money order,” this Court need not actually 
defne that term, as it suffces under the FDA that the instruments in 
question be “similar” to a money order. Pp. 132–134. 
(b) Both Delaware and, to some extent, the Special Master, claim that 
even if the Disputed Instruments qualify as “other similar written in-
strument[s]” under the FDA, they are also “third party bank check[s],” 
which are expressly excluded from the FDA. The problem with this 
argument is that the FDA does not defne that phrase. Nor does that 
phrase have a commonly accepted meaning. Delaware insists that the 
term means a check signed by a bank offcer and paid through a third 
party. But the State provides no theory as to why it matters to the 
FDA's escheatment rules whether a fnancial instrument is or is not paid 
through a third party. In his Second Interim Report, the Special Mas-
ter offered the view that “third party bank check” was intended to ex-
clude from the FDA's reach certain well-known fnancial instruments 
upon which a bank may be liable, specifcally, cashier's checks, certifed 
checks, and teller's checks and thus, to the extent a bank shares liability 
with MoneyGram on a Disputed Instrument, that product should like-
wise be characterized as a third 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 fnancial products, 
while also calling out other well-known instruments, such as money or-
ders, 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 trigger-

118 
 DELAWARE v. PENNSYL V ANIA 
Syllabus 
ing an exclusion from the FDA given that banks can be liable on money 
orders and those products are expressly covered by the statute. Fi-
nally, 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 ex-
clude from the FDA large swaths of prepaid instruments that escheat 
inequitably due to the business practices of the company holding the 
funds. Pp. 135–140. 
Exceptions to Special Master's First Interim Report overruled; First In-
terim Report and order adopted to the extent consistent with this opin-
ion; and cases remanded. 
Jackson, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court with respect 
to Parts I, II, III, and IV–A, and the opinion of the Court with respect to 
Part IV–B, in which Roberts, C. J., and Sotomayor, Kagan, and Kav-
anaugh, JJ., joined. 
Neal Kumar Katyal argued the cause for Delaware. 
With him on the briefs were Katherine B. Wellington, Jo-
Ann Tamila Sagar, Steven S. Rosenthal, Tiffany R. Mose-
ley, John David Taliaferro, Marc S. Cohen, and Kathleen 
Jennings, Attorney General of Delaware, Aaron R. Gol-
dstein, State Solicitor, and Michelle E. Whalen and Anthony 
J. Testa, Jr., Deputy Attorneys General. 
Nicholas J. Bronni, Solicitor General of Arkansas, argued 
the cause for Arkansas et al. With him on the brief were 
Leslie Rutledge, Attorney General of Arkansas, and Vincent 
M. Wagner, Deputy Solicitor General, Steve Marshall, Attor-
ney General of Alabama, Mark Brnovich, Attorney General 
of Arizona, Rob Bonta, Attorney General of California, Mi-
chael J. Mongan, Solicitor General, Jonathan L. Wolff, Chief 
Assistant Attorney General, Tamar Pachter, Senior Assist-
ant Attorney General, Aimee Feinberg, Deputy Solicitor 
General, Molly K. Mosley, Supervising Deputy Attorney 
General, and Michael Sapoznikow, Deputy Attorney Gen-
eral, Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General of Colorado, Ashley 
Moody, Attorney General of Florida, Lawrence G. Wasden, 
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Attorney General of Idaho, Todd Rokita, Attorney General 
of Indiana, Tom Miller, Attorney General of Iowa, Derek 
Schmidt, Attorney General of Kansas, Daniel Cameron, At-
torney General of Kentucky, Jeff Landry, Attorney General 
of Louisiana, Brian Frosh, Attorney General of Maryland, 
Dana Nessel, Attorney General of Michigan, Austin Knud-
sen, Attorney General of Montana, Doug Peterson, Attorney 
General of Nebraska, Aaron D. Ford, Attorney General of 
Nevada, Wayne Stenehjem, Attorney General of North Da-
kota, Dave Yost, Attorney General of Ohio, John M. O'Con-
nor, Attorney General of Oklahoma, Ellen F. Rosenblum, At-
torney General of Oregon, Alan Wilson, Attorney General 
of South Carolina, Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas, 
Patrick K. Sweeten, Associate Deputy Attorney General, and 
Ryan D. Walters, Sean D. Reyes, Attorney General of Utah, 
Mark Herring, Attorney General of Virginia, Bob Ferguson, 
Attorney General of Washington, Patrick Morrisey, Attor-
ney General of West Virginia, Joshua L. Kaul, Attorney 
General of Wisconsin, and Karla Z. Keckhaver, Assistant At-
torney General, Bridget Hill, Attorney General of Wyoming, 
Matthew H. Haverstick, Mark E. Seiberling, Joshua J. Voss, 
Lorena E. Ahumada, Christopher B. Craig, and Jennifer 
Langan.† 
Justice Jackson delivered the opinion of the Court.* 
“Escheatment” is the power of a State, as a sovereign, to 
take custody of property deemed abandoned. Texas v. New 
Jersey, 379 U. S. 674, 675 (1965). In the context of tangible 
property, the escheatment rule is straightforward: The State 
in which the abandoned property is located has the power 
to take custody of it. Id., at 677. But determining which 
†Briefs of amici curiae were fled in both cases for the American Bank-
ers Association by Joseph R. Guerra; and for Unclaimed Property Profes-
sionals Organization by Sara A. Lima and Ethan D. Millar. 
*Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice 
Barrett join all but Part IV–B of this opinion. 
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Opinion of the Court 
State has the power to escheat intangible property, which 
has no physical location, can be complicated, as multiple 
States may have arguable claims. See ibid. 
These original jurisdiction cases require us to decide 
which States have the power to escheat the proceeds of cer-
tain abandoned fnancial products that MoneyGram Payment 
Systems, Inc. (MoneyGram), possesses. Delaware argues 
that this Court's common-law rules of escheatment apply, 
which means that the abandoned proceeds should go to Dela-
ware as MoneyGram's State of incorporation. A collective 
of other States (Defendant States) argues that a federal stat-
ute—the Disposition of Abandoned Money Orders and Trav-
eler's Checks Act (Federal Disposition Act or FDA), 88 Stat. 
1525, 12 U. S. C. § 2501 et seq.—governs the products at issue, 
and therefore, as a general matter, the abandoned proceeds 
should escheat to the State where the products were pur-
chased. We hold that the FDA covers the instruments in 
question and thus that they should generally escheat to the 
State of purchase, pursuant to § 2503. 
I 
To decide which escheatment rules apply, we must inter-
pret a federal statute that abrogates our precedent. Thus, 
we begin with a discussion of this Court's common-law rules 
for escheatment, followed by a description of the statute that 
partially displaced those rules. 
A 
Our frst case to address the escheatment of intangible 
property involved Western Union money orders. Western 
Union Telegraph Co. v. Pennsylvania, 368 U. S. 71, 72 (1961). 
At the time, if an individual wanted to safely send money to 
another person, she could go to a Western Union offce and 
purchase a money order. Ibid. Such a purchaser would 
give Western Union the value of the money order plus a fee. 
Ibid. Then, Western Union would send a telegraph message 
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to the company offce closest to the intended recipient (or 
“intended payee”). Ibid. Upon notifcation, the intended 
payee could come to his local Western Union offce to collect 
a negotiable draft, which he could cash immediately or keep 
to cash in the future. Ibid. 
Sometimes, however, the prepaid draft was never collected 
or cashed. Id., at 72–73. At that point, Western Union 
would endeavor to issue a refund to the purchaser. Ibid. 
But if neither the purchaser nor the payee ever collected the 
prepayment, Western Union would hold on to the funds until 
they were deemed abandoned under state law, at which point 
the property could become eligible for escheatment. Ibid.; 
see also Pennsylvania v. New York, 407 U. S. 206, 209 (1972). 
Texas outlined the rules that this Court established for 
determining which State has the right to take custody of 
such abandoned property. 379 U. S., at 680–682. That case 
involved various small debts held by Sun Oil Company, and 
multiple States asserted the right to escheat the funds. Id., 
at 675–676. To resolve the competing claims, we estab-
lished that, as the primary (default) rule, the proceeds of 
abandoned fnancial products should escheat “to the State of 
the creditor's last known address as shown by the debtor's 
books and records.” Id., at 680–681.
1 
We further acknowledged that there would be times in 
which that primary rule would not resolve the escheatment 
question, either because the creditors' addresses were un-
known or because the State that is entitled to escheatment 
under the primary rule did not have a law empowering it to 
take custody of the proceeds. Id., at 682. So we also 
1 We have previously described the “debtor” as the entity holding the 
prepaid funds equivalent to the value of the money order, for example, 
Western Union or MoneyGram, which would be contractually obligated to 
pay those funds to certain recipients. Delaware v. New York, 507 U. S. 
490, 503 (1993). The “creditors” can be both the intended payee and, 
where the debtor has an obligation to provide a refund if the draft is never 
paid out, the original purchaser. Ibid. 
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adopted a secondary rule to apply in those circumstances; 
namely, that the proceeds should escheat to the debtor's 
State of incorporation. Ibid. 
These rules were designed, at least in part, to distribute 
escheats equitably. We selected escheatment to the State 
of the creditor's last known address as the default principle 
because it “tend[ed] to distribute escheats among the States 
in the proportion of the commercial activities of their resi-
dents.” Id., at 681. By contrast, escheatment to the State 
of incorporation of the debtor (our secondary rule) “would 
too greatly exhalt a minor factor”—i. e., where the debtor 
chose to incorporate—when the underlying “obligations 
[were] incurred all over the country.” Id., at 680. How-
ever, we believed the secondary rule was likely to apply 
“with comparative infrequency.” Id., at 682. 
It soon became clear that our primary and secondary es-
cheatment rules were resulting in inequitable distributions, 
at least with respect to particular instruments, because 
Western Union largely did not keep records of the addresses 
of the purchasers or payees of the money orders that the 
company sold, as a matter of business practice. Pennsylva-
nia, 407 U. S., at 211–212, 214. The default rule thus rarely 
applied in practice, such that proceeds from abandoned West-
ern Union money orders largely escheated to New York, 
Western Union's State of incorporation, pursuant to the sec-
ondary rule. Id., at 212, 214. 
Characterizing this “windfall” as unfair, Pennsylvania fled 
an action that asked us to reconsider Texas's escheatment 
rules. 407 U. S., at 213–215. Pennsylvania argued that the 
proceeds from an abandoned money order should escheat to 
the State where the money order was purchased rather than 
the State of the creditor's last known address. Id., at 212, 
214. This proposal approximated our primary rule under 
the commonsense assumption that a money order is usually 
purchased in the State where the creditor lives, but it obvi-
ated the need to require additional recordkeeping by the 
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debtor. See id., at 214. While we recognized that Pennsyl-
vania's proposed escheatment rule had “some surface ap-
peal,” we declined to modify the primary and secondary 
rules established in Texas, noting that States could solve the 
problem of inequitable escheatment by requiring Western 
Union to keep suffcient records. 407 U. S., at 214–215. 
B 
Congress passed the FDA two years after our decision in 
Pennsylvania to abrogate this Court's common-law escheat-
ment practices and adopt a more equitable rule, at least for 
some products. 12 U. S. C. § 2501; Delaware v. New York, 
507 U. S. 490, 510 (1993); S. Rep. No. 93–505, pp. 1–3 (1973). 
In the text of the statute, Congress declared that, “as a 
matter of equity among the several States,” the States 
“wherein the purchasers of money orders and traveler's 
checks reside should . . . be entitled to the proceeds of such 
instruments in the event of abandonment.” § 2501(3). Yet, 
the statute further recognized that such an equitable distri-
bution was not happening under the common-law rules, to 
the detriment of interstate commerce, because “the books 
and records of banking and fnancial organizations and busi-
ness associations engaged in issuing and selling money or-
ders and traveler's checks do not, as a matter of business 
practice, show the last known addresses of purchasers of 
such instruments.” § 2501(1); see § 2501(4). 
Notably, instead of keeping our Texas default rule and 
mandating recordkeeping requirements for debtors, as we 
had suggested in Pennsylvania, the FDA addressed the in-
equitable escheatment problem by establishing a different 
set of escheatment rules that displaces this Court's primary 
and secondary escheatment rules whenever applicable. See 
§ 2503. It states that “[w]here any sum is payable on a 
money order, traveler's check, or other similar written in-
strument (other than a third party bank check) on which a 
banking or fnancial organization or a business association is 
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Opinion of the Court 
directly liable,” the primary escheatment rule is the place-
of-purchase rule that Pennsylvania had proposed in the 
Pennsylvania case. § 2503(1). 
Thus, per the FDA, the proceeds of the listed fnancial in-
struments escheat to the State of purchase upon abandon-
ment, so long as purchase-location information is known and 
that State has enacted laws empowering it to take custody 
of those proceeds. Ibid.
2 The text of the FDA also ex-
plains why the inequitable escheatment problem was handled 
in this fashion rather than by adopting a recordkeeping re-
quirement for debtors holding on to abandoned funds. See 
§ 2501(5) (observing that “the cost of maintaining and re-
trieving addresses of purchasers of money orders and travel-
er's checks is an additional burden on interstate commerce” 
that is unnecessary “since it has been determined that most 
purchasers reside in the State of purchase of such 
instruments”). 
II 
A 
Although the telegraphic aspect of Western Union's money 
order business has fallen into disuse, money orders are still 
2 In full, the primary escheatment rule of the FDA states: 
“Where any sum is payable on a money order, traveler's check, or other 
similar written instrument (other than a third party bank check) on which 
a banking or fnancial organization or a business association is directly 
liable– 
“(1) if the books and records of such banking or fnancial organization 
or business association show the State in which such money order, travel-
er's check, or similar written instrument was purchased, that State shall 
be entitled exclusively to escheat or take custody of the sum payable on 
such instrument, to the extent of that State's power under its own laws to 
escheat or take custody of such sum.” § 2503. 
Subsections (2) and (3) adopt alternative rules that apply when there is 
insuffcient information about where the instrument was purchased, and/ 
or when the State of purchase does not have laws permitting the escheat-
ment of such property. In those circumstances, the abandoned proceeds 
from covered instruments escheat to the State where the company holding 
the funds has its principal place of business. §§ 2503(2)–(3). 
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Opinion of the Court 
sold today for the same purpose: to safely transmit funds to 
an intended payee.3 Many banks have outsourced the issu-
ance and handling of these kinds of prepaid fnancial instru-
ments to businesses such as MoneyGram. 
The parties have identifed four MoneyGram products as 
relevant to this litigation. MoneyGram calls these fnancial 
instruments “Retail Money Orders,” “Agent Check Money 
Orders,” “Agent Checks,” and “Teller's Checks.” All of 
these instruments are products that MoneyGram creates and 
markets but that are sold to customers by another entity 
(either a retail location or bank) on behalf of MoneyGram. 
As a general matter, these four MoneyGram products op-
erate in the same manner. The purchaser prepays the face 
value of the instrument, plus any fee, and MoneyGram holds 
the proceeds (which have been sent to them by the seller 
entity) until the intended payee presents the instrument for 
payment. In addition, as a matter of business practice, 
MoneyGram keeps only limited records about transactions 
concerning these products. The seller entity transmits in-
formation to MoneyGram that identifes where the product 
was sold, among other things, but the seller does not include 
in the information given to MoneyGram the identity or ad-
dress of the purchaser or payee (even if the seller collects 
that information). 
The heart of the instant dispute relates to how Money-
Gram handles the abandoned proceeds of these products. 
MoneyGram considers two of the four products—Retail 
Money Orders and Agent Check Money Orders—as falling 
within the scope of the FDA, so it gives the abandoned pro-
ceeds of those particular instruments to the States of pur-
chase in accordance with § 2503. But MoneyGram treats 
3 In addition to being a safe alternative to cash for transmitting money, 
money orders and similar prepaid instruments have an advantage over 
standard checks in that, because they are prepaid, they do not depend on 
the purchaser having suffcient funds in her bank account (in ordinary 
parlance, they cannot “bounce”). 
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Opinion of the Court 
Agent Checks and Teller's Checks (collectively, the Disputed 
Instruments) as governed by the common law instead of the 
FDA. Because MoneyGram does not keep records of credi-
tor addresses for these products, MoneyGram applies the 
secondary rule of Texas and gives the abandoned proceeds 
of those particular instruments to its State of incorpora-
tion, Delaware. 
B 
After an audit of MoneyGram's escheatment policies, 
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin fled separate lawsuits challeng-
ing Delaware's escheatment of the abandoned proceeds of 
Agent Checks and Teller's Checks. Invoking this Court's 
original jurisdiction to decide controversies between States, 
Delaware moved to fle a bill of complaint against Pennsylva-
nia and Wisconsin. Arkansas, acting on behalf of itself and 
several other States, fled a separate motion for leave to fle 
a bill of complaint. We consolidated the actions and ap-
pointed a Special Master. 
The Special Master bifurcated the proceedings into liabil-
ity and damages phases. The frst phase (to which the cur-
rent dispute pertains) focuses solely on which State or States 
have priority to take custody of the proceeds from Money-
Gram Agent Checks and Teller's Checks upon abandonment. 
At the second phase, the Special Master will analyze any 
damages. The parties filed cross-motions for summary 
judgment on the issue of liability. 
In July 2021, the Special Master issued a First Interim 
Report that concluded that the Disputed Instruments were 
covered by the FDA. Delaware fled exceptions to that re-
port. Then, after we had considered the parties' briefs and 
held oral argument, the Special Master announced that our 
proceedings had caused him to reassess his conclusions. He 
subsequently issued a Second Interim Report that concluded 
that many of the Disputed Instruments were or could be 
“third party bank checks” and would thereby be excluded 
from the FDA, which means that, when abandoned, they 
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would generally escheat to Delaware under the common law. 
Both parties submitted exceptions to the Special Master's 
Second Interim Report. 
III 
The parties are at odds over whether the Disputed Instru-
ments 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 com-
mon 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. 
A 
Because the plain text of the FDA applies to not only 
money orders and traveler's checks but also written instru-
ments that are “similar” to those fnancial products, ibid., we 
need not determine whether the Disputed Instruments are 
money orders; a fnding that they are similar to money or-
ders is suffcient to bring them within the reach of the stat-
ute (so long as they are not third party bank checks).
4 We 
determine what “similar” entails in light of the FDA's “text 
and context,” Southwest Airlines Co. v. Saxon, 596 U. S. 
–––, ––– (2022), not in the abstract. And in these particular 
cases, the Disputed Instruments share two relevant similari-
ties with money orders. Those instruments operate in the 
same manner as money orders do (as defned by contempora-
4 The parties agree that the Disputed Instruments are not traveler's 
checks, which are a type of prepaid fnancial product characterized by a 
double signature: the purchaser signs once when purchasing the instru-
ment and then again when redeeming it. Accordingly, although traveler's 
checks share the characteristics outlined infra, at 128–131, for simplicity's 
sake, we focus on the similarities between money orders and the Disputed 
Instruments, in the context of § 2503, for purposes of this opinion. 
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neous dictionaries and our prior escheatment cases), and 
they also implicate the one feature of money orders that the 
text of the FDA explicitly identifes, insofar as the Disputed 
Instruments escheat inequitably solely to one State under 
our common-law rules due to the business practices of the 
company holding the funds. 
First, the Disputed Instruments are similar to money or-
ders in function and operation. The FDA does not defne a 
“money order,” so the core features of that instrument are 
gleaned from a consideration of the “ `ordinary, contempo-
rary, common meaning' ” of the term. Sandifer v. United 
States Steel Corp., 571 U. S. 220, 227 (2014) (quoting Perrin 
v. United States, 444 U. S. 37, 42 (1979)). The parties cite a 
variety of contemporaneous dictionary defnitions and ency-
clopedia descriptions for the term, and, at the most basic 
level, a money order is universally defned as a prepaid (or 
“purchased”) fnancial instrument used to transmit money to 
a named payee.
5 Some of the dictionaries further indicate 
that a money order involves a “specifed sum of money.” 
Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary 547 (1972); see 
also American Heritage Dictionary 847 (1969) (“a specifed 
amount of money”). 
These features—i. e., prepayment of a specifed amount of 
money to be transmitted to a named payee—generally accord 
with how we described the Western Union money orders at 
issue in our prior escheatment cases. See Pennsylvania, 
407 U. S., at 208; Western Union Telegraph Co., 368 U. S., at 
72. And the FDA was enacted against the backdrop of the 
5 See, e. g., Black's Law Dictionary 907 (5th ed. 1979); Glenn G. Munn's 
Encyclopedia of Banking and Finance 581 (rev. 7th ed. 1973); Webster's 
Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary 547 (1972); 15 Compton's Encyclopedia 
and Fact-Index 430 (1970); American Heritage Dictionary 847 (1969); 
Black's Law Dictionary 1158 (rev. 4th ed. 1968). While these sources do 
not use the term “prepaid,” they describe a prepaid fnancial instrument 
because they defne a money order as an instrument “purchased” by one 
party in order to transmit money to another party. 
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Opinion of the Court 
common law as set forth in those cases; indeed, it abrogates 
the common-law escheatment rules that we adopted in those 
cases. The statute is naturally read to refect the same 
basic conception of the term “money order” that we ad-
dressed in those precedents. 
The operation of the FDA further confrms the relevance 
of the prepayment feature of a money order for the purpose 
of assessing the similarity of the Disputed Instruments. 
The FDA plainly regulates the escheatment of abandoned 
fnancial products, and when fnancial instruments are pre-
paid, the likelihood of their abandonment (and thus the po-
tential for escheatment) increases, as the holder of the pro-
ceeds of such instruments has possession of the prepaid sums 
of money if the instruments are never collected or presented 
for payment. See Pennsylvania, 407 U. S., at 208. Thus, 
the FDA naturally applies to prepaid instruments, such as 
money orders, given that those instruments are of a type 
likely to implicate the FDA's escheatment rules. And Dela-
ware does not dispute that, just like money orders, the Dis-
puted Instruments are prepaid written fnancial instruments 
used to transmit money to intended payees. 
Second, the Disputed Instruments are similar to the 
“money orders” that the FDA targets because they inequita-
bly escheat in the manner that the text of the FDA specif-
cally identifes as warranting statutory intervention. Just 
as with the money orders in Pennsylvania, the company 
holding the proceeds of the Disputed Instruments (Money-
Gram) does not keep adequate records of creditor addresses 
as a matter of business practice. And the FDA abrogates 
this Court's escheatment precedents on this very basis. See 
§§ 2501, 2503. Consequently, the inherent characteristics of 
money orders are not the only relevant point of similarity 
between money orders and the Disputed Instruments; in ad-
dition, they both would otherwise escheat inequitably under 
the secondary common-law rule due to the business practices 
of the company holding the funds.

130 
 DELAWARE v. PENNSYL V ANIA 
Opinion of the Court 
The context in which the FDA arises underscores the 
meaningfulness of this similarity. Our common-law rules 
were permitting inequitable escheatment (insofar as our pri-
mary rule mistakenly relied on the assumption that the hold-
ers of such instruments regularly collected creditors' address 
information), and the statute that Congress enacted in the 
wake of our Pennsylvania ruling details the inequitable 
escheatment problem. Thus, the FDA regulates “money 
orders” (however that term is ordinarily defned) not just 
for the sake of regulating those particular fnancial in-
struments, but because inequitable escheatment occurs 
under our common-law rules if fnancial instruments do not 
have address information that can facilitate distribution to 
the State of entitlement when they are abandoned, and the 
entities issuing and selling money orders often do not keep 
adequate records. The lack of related creditor address in-
formation was a key feature of the money orders that we 
evaluated when we were asked to revisit our common-law 
escheatment rules in Pennsylvania, 407 U. S., at 214. So it 
should come as no surprise that it is likewise a key feature 
of the statute that Congress enacted to displace our common-
law rules. 
The inadequate-recordkeeping feature of money orders is 
also derived from the text of the FDA itself. The statute 
references both our observation in Texas that, “as a matter 
of equity,” the proceeds of abandoned intangible property 
should be spread “among the several States,” § 2501(3), and 
Pennsylvania's subsequent recognition that “the proceeds 
of such instruments are not being distributed to the States 
entitled thereto,” § 2501(4). The FDA explains that this in-
equity was occurring because “the books and records of 
banking and fnancial organizations and business associations 
engaged in issuing and selling money orders and traveler's 
checks do not, as a matter of business practice, show the 
last known addresses of purchasers of such instruments.” 
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Opinion of the Court 
§ 2501(1). The operative provision of the statute (§ 2503) 
then adopts the precise alternative rule of escheatment that 
Pennsylvania suggested in the face of inequitable escheat-
ment caused by a company's business practices. 
In short, the FDA's text provides a solution for the prob-
lem of the inequitable distribution of escheats, and that solu-
tion expressly eschews requiring entities like Western Union 
to keep adequate records. See §§ 2501(5), 2503. Inade-
quate recordkeeping is thus highly relevant to the interpre-
tive question of when the FDA, rather than the common law, 
should apply to the escheatment of the intangible property 
at issue.
6 
It is uncontested that the Disputed Instruments share the 
inadequate recordkeeping feature of money orders that the 
FDA identifes. See § 2501(1). Therefore, if the common 
law were to apply to the Disputed Instruments, then the 
abandoned proceeds would escheat inequitably solely to the 
6 To be sure, the parties and the Special Master conceive of the interpre-
tive question before us as how to defne the statutory term “money order,” 
or whether the Disputed Instruments look enough like a money order to 
fall within the statute. That is, indeed, one way to view the task at hand. 
But the text and history of the FDA also suggest an alternative framing. 
Against the backdrop of the operation of our common-law rules and in 
light of Congress's effort to abrogate them, the interpretive question be-
comes when should the FDA, rather than the common law, apply to partic-
ular abandoned intangible property (here, the Disputed Instruments). 
And the statute's text suggests at least a partial answer: when “the books 
and records of banking and fnancial organizations and business associa-
tions engaged in issuing and selling” the instruments at issue “do not, as 
a matter of business practice, show the last known addresses of purchasers 
of such instruments,” such that, absent application of the FDA, the prod-
ucts would not be distributed “as a matter of equity among the several 
States.” §§ 2501(1), (3), (4). This answer follows not only from the FDA's 
codifed fndings, but also from § 2503, insofar as the text applies both to 
instruments that can be defned as “money orders” (in light of their inher-
ent features) and also to instruments that are “similar” to money orders 
for escheatment purposes. 
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132 
 DELAWARE v. PENNSYL V ANIA 
Opinion of the Court 
State of incorporation, just like the money orders expressly 
referenced in the statute. 7 
B 
Delaware's various arguments as to why the Disputed In-
struments should not qualify as “other similar written in-
strument[s]” within the meaning of § 2503 are unpersuasive. 
First up in Delaware's attempt to distinguish the Disputed 
Instruments from money orders for FDA purposes is its con-
tention that the term “money order” in the FDA refers to a 
specifc commercial product that is labeled “money order” by 
the seller and is generally sold in low values to low-income 
individuals as a substitute for ordinary personal checks. 
Delaware does not point to any dictionary that includes those 
additional attributes in its defnition of “money order,” nor 
do any of our prior cases that describe Western Union money 
orders mention such features. See Pennsylvania, 407 U. S., 
at 208–209; Western Union Telegraph Co., 368 U. S., at 72– 
73. Moreover, while Delaware offers two encyclopedia en-
tries that suggest money orders are “especially helpful to 
persons who do not have checking accounts,” 
8 neither source 
says that the typical or intended user is, itself, an attribute 
of a money order. 
Delaware also tries to highlight various ways in which the 
Disputed Instruments can be said to differ from money or-
ders, as Delaware describes them, including differences with 
respect to face values and customer use. But Delaware 
never explains why those purported differences are relevant 
to our assessment of similarity for FDA purposes. Since 
7 Indeed, the facts of these very cases refect the inequitable escheat-
ment dynamic that is at the heart of the FDA: According to the Defendant 
States, Delaware took $250 million between 2002 and 2017 pursuant to the 
common law's escheatment rules with respect to Disputed Instruments 
that were purchased across the Nation, whereas, if the FDA applied, that 
State would have been entitled to only about $1 million. 
8 15 Compton's Encyclopedia and Fact-Index, at 430; see also Glenn G. 
Munn's Encyclopedia of Banking and Finance, at 581. 
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Opinion of the Court 
money orders and the Disputed Instruments are compara-
tors that are not identical, they are likely to be different in 
some respect. The real question is which differences and 
similarities matter. And none of the differences Delaware 
identifes relates to the statutory text or ordinary meaning 
of a money order, nor do they otherwise undermine the anal-
ysis of similarity we outlined above. 
Undaunted, Delaware attempts to make the differences it 
identifes seem more material by proffering an alternative 
vision of the FDA. In this regard, Delaware asserts that 
the FDA was really an effort to dissuade States from adopt-
ing costly recordkeeping requirements, the costs of which 
might then be passed along to low-income consumers. Its 
argument is that, because the Disputed Instruments are, 
when compared to money orders, generally larger value in-
struments that are typically purchased by consumers who 
can more easily absorb any additional recordkeeping-related 
costs, those products simply do not implicate the FDA's core 
(cost-related) concerns and are thus not “similar” to money 
orders. 
But the text of the FDA bears no relationship to Dela-
ware's cost argument. Indeed, the statute says absolutely 
nothing about the rising costs of money orders for low-
income individuals. See § 2501. “[T]he cost of maintaining 
and retrieving addresses of purchasers of money orders and 
traveler's checks” is only mentioned to explain why a manda-
tory recordkeeping option (which we had suggested in Penn-
sylvania, 407 U. S., at 215) was not selected as the statutory 
solution to the inequitable escheatment problem that the 
FDA plainly addresses. § 2501(5). 
Nor does it matter that there would be no inequitable es-
cheatment with respect to the Disputed Instruments if 
MoneyGram did not factor into the equation, as Delaware 
maintains. In this regard, Delaware argues that the Dis-
puted Instruments do not implicate the concerns underlying 
the FDA because the banks that sell the Disputed Instru-

134 
 DELAWARE v. PENNSYL V ANIA 
Opinion of the Court 
ments generally do keep adequate records, and therefore 
States can avoid the escheatment problem by passing laws 
requiring those banks to transmit their records to Money-
Gram and requiring MoneyGram to keep those records. But 
the FDA regulates escheatment, so it is the recordkeeping 
practices of the entity holding the funds that is relevant. 
Here, that entity is MoneyGram, not the banks. Money-
Gram has the recordkeeping practices identifed as warrant-
ing intervention through the FDA, see § 2501(1), and the 
statute contains a solution to the escheatment problem that 
MoneyGram's ordinary business practices cause, see § 2503. 
Finally, Delaware suggests that § 2503 must be read nar-
rowly in order to avoid both creating surplusage and sweep-
ing in all sorts of fnancial products that Congress did not 
intend to cover. This goes too far. Although Delaware ar-
gues, with some merit, that broadly defning a “money 
order” as a prepaid instrument used to transmit money to a 
named payee would render the statute's separate references 
to “traveler's checks” and “other similar written instru-
ments” superfuous, we need not defne “money order” in 
order to conclude that the FDA applies to the Disputed In-
struments, since it suffces that the instruments in question 
be “similar” to a money order; they need not share its defni-
tion. And if “other similar written instrument” is inter-
preted with reference to both the inherent qualities of a 
money order and also the recordkeeping concern that the 
FDA expressly identifes in the text, as discussed above, 
then the scope of the statute is properly cabined.
9 
9 It is true that, so interpreted, the status of a particular category of 
instrument as falling within or outside of the FDA's scope could shift if 
the company in possession of the funds changes its regular or ordinary 
business practices. But, given this unusual statute, that is not an anoma-
lous outcome. Both Congress (in the text of the FDA) and this Court (in 
our precedents) have indicated a preference for the equitable distribution 
of escheats, and our common-law rules can result in equitable escheatment 
if the business practices of the company possessing the funds suffce. The 
FDA is a recognition that, sometimes, our common-law rules do not 
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Opinion of the Court 
IV 
Delaware argues that even if the Disputed Instruments 
qualify as “other similar written instrument[s]” within 
the meaning of § 2503 they are also “third party bank 
check[s]” and, as such, are expressly excluded from the 
FDA.
10 The Special Master, too, ultimately adopted a ver-
sion of this argument; in his view, the “third party bank 
check” exemption applies to any Disputed Instrument on 
which a bank is liable (in addition to MoneyGram).
11 Nei-
ther Delaware nor the Special Master has provided a per-
suasive reason for concluding that the Disputed Instru-
ments are “third party bank check[s]” within the meaning 
of the FDA, and the drafting history of the statute further 
confrms that the sweep of that language is not as broad 
as the defnitions that Delaware and the Special Master 
have offered. Therefore, as explained below, we do not 
accept the contention that the Disputed Instruments are 
achieve that outcome, i. e., it is the equivalent of a statutory “Band-Aid” 
if our common-law rules fail. In other words, the FDA is a statutory fx 
that need only kick in when, as a matter of business practice, the company 
holding the funds does not generally collect the relevant address informa-
tion, such that inequitable escheatment occurs. The text and context of 
the FDA—and especially the phrase “other similar written instrument”— 
connote that fexibility and do not suggest that the statute only and exclu-
sively applies to a static category of products. 
10 The Special Master concluded that the “third party bank check” ex-
emption modifes only “other similar written instrument” and does not 
modify the terms “money order” or “traveler's check.” Delaware does 
not challenge this conclusion. 
11 When they appeared before the Special Master, the parties and ex-
perts disagreed on the meaning of “liability,” and no one has proffered an 
agreed-upon defnition to this Court. Before us, Delaware does not dis-
pute the Special Master's conclusion that MoneyGram is “directly liable” 
on the Disputed Instruments. When referencing a bank's liability on a 
MoneyGram product, it appears that the Special Master was using the 
term to describe a situation where a bank—as opposed to only Money-
Gram—also has an obligation to pay the prepaid instrument upon proper 
presentment. 
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136 
 DELAWARE v. PENNSYL V ANIA 
Opinion of the Court 
carved out of the statute per the “third party bank check” 
language. 
A 
First, however, a caveat: We readily admit that discerning 
the meaning of “third party bank check” in § 2503 is tricky, 
because the FDA does not defne that phrase, and, as far as 
we can tell, it does not have an “ordinary, contemporary, com-
mon meaning.” Sandifer, 571 U. S., at 227. The parties 
have not pointed to any contemporary legal or fnancial 
source that defnes that precise term. And the FDA's “third 
party bank check” language confounded all three experts re-
tained in these cases, each of whom agreed that it has no 
traditional meaning in either the legal or the fnancial 
realms. Notably, the Special Master valiantly attempted to 
bring clarity to this term, adopting three different defni-
tions of “third party bank check” over the course of this liti-
gation. Ultimately, between the parties and the Special 
Master, we have been offered at least six disparate defni-
tions of the term.
12 
In the midst of this uncertainty, Delaware insists that the 
term “third party bank check” means a check signed by a 
bank offcer and paid through a third party. Not surpris-
ingly, that defnition fts the Disputed Instruments like a 
glove, given that they are signed by bank employees and 
then ultimately paid through MoneyGram, a nonbank third 
party, when presented. But Delaware provides no support 
whatsoever for the conclusion that this is what “third party 
bank check” means in the FDA context. And, indeed, Dela-
ware's own expert disagreed with that defnition for FDA 
purposes. Delaware also has no theory as to why it matters 
12 Those defnitions are: an ordinary (nonprepaid) check; a check sold at 
a bank and paid through a third party such as MoneyGram; a check issued 
at a bank indorsed to a third party; a check on which a bank is liable that 
was issued at the instance of a third party; a check on which a bank is 
liable regardless of whether a third party is involved; a check which is 
drawn on (and only drawn on) bank accounts. 
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Opinion of the Court 
to the escheatment rules that the statute adopts whether a 
fnancial instrument is or is not paid through a third party 
like MoneyGram. Thus, we are hard pressed to agree that 
“third party bank check” means what Delaware says. 
The Special Master's analysis fares no better. In his Sec-
ond Interim Report, the Special Master offered a potential 
defnition of “third party bank check” that relies on the view 
that the phrase was intended to exclude from the FDA's 
reach certain fnancial instruments that were well known at 
the time of the statute's enactment but were not expressly 
mentioned in the statute—specifcally, cashier's checks, certi-
fed checks, and teller's checks. According to the Special 
Master, a signifcant feature of those particular fnancial in-
struments at the time of the FDA's enactment was that a 
bank was liable on those instruments. Therefore, according 
to the Special Master, insofar as a bank is directly liable on 
some of the Disputed Instruments (in addition to Money-
Gram), any such MoneyGram product is a “bank check” that 
should be deemed to fall within the “third party bank check” 
exception for purposes of the FDA. 
We detect multiple problems with the Special Master's 
reasoning. For one, the Special Master did not explain 
why the statute uses the amorphous phrase “third party 
bank check” to capture specifc fnancial instruments that, 
according to the Special Master, were well known at the 
time of the enactment of the statute. Congress called out 
other well-known instruments—money orders and traveler's 
checks—by their names in the text of the FDA. One would 
reasonably expect it to have done the same for cashier's 
checks, certifed checks, and teller's checks.
13 
The Special Master also failed to provide an adequate ex-
planation for why bank liability relates in any meaningful 
way to the escheatment rules that the FDA adopts. That 
13 We are not opining today as to whether the FDA applies to cashier's 
checks, certifed checks, or non-MoneyGram teller's checks because the 
dispute before us does not concern those products.

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138 
 DELAWARE v. PENNSYL V ANIA 
Opinion of the Court 
explanation seems crucial because the parties appear to 
agree that banks can be liable on money orders themselves, 
and, as previously explained, far from being excluded, money 
orders are expressly covered items in this statute. This in-
congruity makes it hard to conceive of the bank-liability at-
tribute as the tipping point for whether a fnancial instru-
ment qualifes as a “third party bank check” for FDA 
purposes. Similarly, if we were to agree with the Special 
Master that bank liability is dispositive of a “third party 
bank check” designation, then presumably any draft on 
which a bank is liable would fall outside of the FDA—a result 
that reads the term “third party” out of the statute. 
The Special Master's reasoning further fails to account for 
the nature of the Disputed Instruments, which do not appear 
to qualify as “bank checks,” at least not in the traditional 
sense of that word. According to the parties, a “bank 
check” is a check “drawn” on a bank's own account or by a 
bank and on a bank (either the same bank or another).
14 
That does not describe the Disputed Instruments, which are 
drawn on MoneyGram's account, not a bank's account. 
Consequently, nothing in the reasoning provided by Dela-
ware or the Special Master persuades us that the Disputed 
Instruments, which are otherwise “similar” to money orders 
for FDA purposes, should be deemed “third party bank 
checks” within the meaning of § 2503. 
B 
Nor does the legislative history support Delaware's con-
tention that the Disputed Instruments constitute “third 
party bank checks.” “Those of us who make use of legisla-
tive history believe that clear evidence of congressional in-
14 See L. Lawrence, Making Cashier's Checks and Other Bank Checks 
Cost-Effective: A Plea for Revision of Articles 3 and 4 of the Uniform 
Commercial Code, 64 Minn. L. Rev. 275, 278 (1980); G. Wallach, Negotiable 
Instruments: The Bank Customer's Ability To Prevent Payment on Vari-
ous Forms of Checks, 11 Ind. L. Rev. 579, 584 (1978).

139 
Cite as: 598 U. S. 115 (2023) 
Opinion of the Court 
tent may illuminate ambiguous text.” Milner v. Depart-
ment of Navy , 562 U. S. 562, 572 (2011). In the instant 
situation, while the meaning of the phrase “third party bank 
check” is subject to myriad alternative defnitions and is gen-
erally unknown, the phrase was inserted into § 2503 under 
well-documented circumstances. And those circumstances 
further support the conclusion that, whatever “third party 
bank check” is meant to mean, the Disputed Instruments 
are not exempted from the FDA under that provision, as 
Delaware maintains. 
Specifcally, during the time in which Congress was mull-
ing a draft of the FDA's provisions, it solicited the views of 
the Treasury Department, and the agency's general counsel 
responded. He wrote a letter stating that, although he did 
not object to the adoption of the bill's escheatment rules, he 
“believe[d] the language of the bill [was] broader than in-
tended by the drafters.” S. Rep. No. 93–505, at 5 (Letter 
from E. Schmults). According to the letter, agency counsel 
was concerned, in particular, that the phrase “ `money order, 
traveler's check, or similar written instrument on which a 
bank or fnancial organization or business association is di-
rectly liable' ” could be interpreted to cover “ `third party 
payment bank checks.' ” Ibid. Thus, he recommended ex-
cluding “third party payment bank checks” from the FDA, 
ibid., and Congress subsequently adopted this recommenda-
tion, dropping the suggested word “payment” in the process, 
id., at 6; see also § 2503. 
Reliable sources indicate that the “third party bank check” 
language was not supposed to be a signifcant addition. The 
Senate Report described it as a mere “technical” alteration. 
Id., at 6; see also 120 Cong. Rec. 4528 (1974) (statement of 
Comm. Chairman Sen. Sparkman referring to the insertion 
of the language as a “minor” change). Thus, that statutory 
phrase is reasonably viewed as merely clarifying the in-
tended initial scope of coverage (i. e., as an effort to better 
demarcate the boundaries of a statute that regulates es-
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140 
 DELAWARE v. PENNSYL V ANIA 
Opinion of the Court 
cheatment of “money order[s], traveler's check[s], [and] other 
similar written instrument[s],” § 2503), rather than as an ex-
press exemption that accepts that items of this nature would 
otherwise qualify for regulation under the terms of the stat-
ute and specifcally undertakes to carve them out. 
In any event, given the history and text of the FDA, it 
would be strange to interpret the “third party bank check” 
language to exempt from the statute entire swaths of pre-
paid fnancial instruments that are otherwise similar to 
money orders in that they operate in generally the same 
fashion and would likewise escheat inequitably pursuant to 
the common law due to the business practices of the company 
holding the funds. At the very least, reading the exemption 
that broadly would imbue “third party bank check” with a 
meaning that far surpasses a “technical” change. And it 
would also risk rendering largely ineffectual the FDA's 
framework for displacement of the common law, as necessary, 
to ensure equitable escheatment. 
* * * 
When a fnancial product operates like a money order— 
i. e., when it is a prepaid written instrument used to transmit 
money to a named payee—and when it would also escheat 
inequitably solely to the State of incorporation of the com-
pany holding the funds under our common-law rules due to 
recordkeeping gaps, then it is suffciently “similar” to a 
money order to fall presumptively within the FDA. Such is 
the case with the Disputed Instruments. And nothing in 
the parties' arguments, the Special Master's Second Interim 
Report, or the record in these cases persuades us that the 
Disputed Instruments should be deemed “third party bank 
checks.” 
Accordingly, we adopt the Special Master's recommenda-
tions in the First Interim Report, along with his initial pro-
posed order, to the extent they are consistent with this opin-
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141 
Cite as: 598 U. S. 115 (2023) 
Opinion of the Court 
ion.15 We also overrule Delaware's exceptions to the First 
Interim Report and remand this matter to the Special Mas-
ter for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 16 
It is so ordered. 
15 Because we decline to adopt the Special Master's Second Interim Re-
port, we need not address the Defendant States' argument that we should 
not entertain the Second Interim Report. 
16 In light of our conclusions in these cases, Pennsylvania's alternative 
request that we reconsider the common-law escheatment rules is moot. 
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Reporter’s Note 
The attached opinion has been revised to refect the usual publication 
and citation style of the United States Reports. The revised pagination 
makes available the offcial United States Reports citation in advance of 
publication. The syllabus has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions 
for the convenience of the reader and constitutes no part of the opinion of 
the Court. A list of counsel who argued or fled briefs in this case, and 
who were members of the bar of this Court at the time this case was 
argued, has been inserted following the syllabus. Other revisions may 
include adjustments to formatting, captions, citation form, and any errant 
punctuation. The following additional edits were made: 
p. 115, line 19, “this case” is changed to “these cases”

Retrieval chunks

• #1

  PRELIMINARY PRINT Volume 598 U. S. Part 1 Pages 115–141 OFFICIAL REPORTS OF THE SUPREME COURT February 28, 2023 REBECCA A. WOMELDORF reporter of decisions Page Proof Pending Publication NOTICE: This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before the bound volume is published. Users are requested to …

• #2

  ten 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 …

• #3

  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 secon…

• #4

  (b) Both Delaware and, to some extent, the Special Master, claim that even if the Disputed Instruments qualify as “other similar written in- strument[s]” under the FDA, they are also “third party bank check[s],” which are expressly excluded from the FDA. The problem with this argument is that the FDA does not defn…

• #5

  to Parts I, II, III, and IV–A, and the opinion of the Court with respect to Part IV–B, in which Roberts, C. J., and Sotomayor, Kagan, and Kav- anaugh, JJ., joined. Neal Kumar Katyal argued the cause for Delaware. With him on the briefs were Katherine B. Wellington, Jo- Ann Tamila Sagar, Steven S. Rosenthal, Tiffa…

• #6

  General of Wisconsin, and Karla Z. Keckhaver, Assistant At- torney General, Bridget Hill, Attorney General of Wyoming, Matthew H. Haverstick, Mark E. Seiberling, Joshua J. Voss, Lorena E. Ahumada, Christopher B. Craig, and Jennifer Langan.† Justice Jackson delivered the opinion of the Court.* “Escheatment” is th…

• #7

  property involved Western Union money orders. Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Pennsylvania, 368 U. S. 71, 72 (1961). At the time, if an individual wanted to safely send money to another person, she could go to a Western Union offce and purchase a money order. Ibid. Such a purchaser would give Western Union the val…

• #8

  490, 503 (1993). The “creditors” can be both the intended payee and, where the debtor has an obligation to provide a refund if the draft is never paid out, the original purchaser. Ibid. Page Proof Pending Publication 122 DELAWARE v. PENNSYL V ANIA Opinion of the Court adopted a secondary rule to apply in those …

• #9

  vania's proposed escheatment rule had “some surface ap- peal,” we declined to modify the primary and secondary rules established in Texas, noting that States could solve the problem of inequitable escheatment by requiring Western Union to keep suffcient records. 407 U. S., at 214–215. B Congress passed the FDA t…

• #10

  plains why the inequitable escheatment problem was handled in this fashion rather than by adopting a recordkeeping re- quirement for debtors holding on to abandoned funds. See § 2501(5) (observing that “the cost of maintaining and re- trieving addresses of purchasers of money orders and travel- er's checks is an …

• #11

  As a general matter, these four MoneyGram products op- erate in the same manner. The purchaser prepays the face value of the instrument, plus any fee, and MoneyGram holds the proceeds (which have been sent to them by the seller entity) until the intended payee presents the instrument for payment. In addition, as …

• #12

  The Special Master bifurcated the proceedings into liabil- ity and damages phases. The frst phase (to which the cur- rent dispute pertains) focuses solely on which State or States have priority to take custody of the proceeds from Money- Gram Agent Checks and Teller's Checks upon abandonment. At the second phase,…

• #13

  cases, the Disputed Instruments share two relevant similari- ties with money orders. Those instruments operate in the same manner as money orders do (as defned by contempora- 4 The parties agree that the Disputed Instruments are not traveler's checks, which are a type of prepaid fnancial product characterized by a…

• #14

  Encyclopedia of Banking and Finance 581 (rev. 7th ed. 1973); Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary 547 (1972); 15 Compton's Encyclopedia and Fact-Index 430 (1970); American Heritage Dictionary 847 (1969); Black's Law Dictionary 1158 (rev. 4th ed. 1968). While these sources do not use the term “prepaid,” they…

• #15

  between money orders and the Disputed Instruments; in ad- dition, they both would otherwise escheat inequitably under the secondary common-law rule due to the business practices of the company holding the funds. 130 DELAWARE v. PENNSYL V ANIA Opinion of the Court The context in which the FDA arises underscores …

• #16

  then adopts the precise alternative rule of escheatment that Pennsylvania suggested in the face of inequitable escheat- ment caused by a company's business practices. In short, the FDA's text provides a solution for the prob- lem of the inequitable distribution of escheats, and that solu- tion expressly eschews r…

• #17

  referenced in the statute. 7 B Delaware's various arguments as to why the Disputed In- struments should not qualify as “other similar written in- strument[s]” within the meaning of § 2503 are unpersuasive. First up in Delaware's attempt to distinguish the Disputed Instruments from money orders for FDA purposes i…

• #18

  of a money order, nor do they otherwise undermine the anal- ysis of similarity we outlined above. Undaunted, Delaware attempts to make the differences it identifes seem more material by proffering an alternative vision of the FDA. In this regard, Delaware asserts that the FDA was really an effort to dissuade Stat…

• #19

  rowly in order to avoid both creating surplusage and sweep- ing in all sorts of fnancial products that Congress did not intend to cover. This goes too far. Although Delaware ar- gues, with some merit, that broadly defning a “money order” as a prepaid instrument used to transmit money to a named payee would render…

• #20

  as the defnitions that Delaware and the Special Master have offered. Therefore, as explained below, we do not accept the contention that the Disputed Instruments are achieve that outcome, i. e., it is the equivalent of a statutory “Band-Aid” if our common-law rules fail. In other words, the FDA is a statutory fx …

• #21

  tions of “third party bank check” over the course of this liti- gation. Ultimately, between the parties and the Special Master, we have been offered at least six disparate defni- tions of the term. 12 In the midst of this uncertainty, Delaware insists that the term “third party bank check” means a check signed b…

• #22

  should be deemed to fall within the “third party bank check” exception for purposes of the FDA. We detect multiple problems with the Special Master's reasoning. For one, the Special Master did not explain why the statute uses the amorphous phrase “third party bank check” to capture specifc fnancial instruments th…

• #23

  for FDA purposes, should be deemed “third party bank checks” within the meaning of § 2503. B Nor does the legislative history support Delaware's con- tention that the Disputed Instruments constitute “third party bank checks.” “Those of us who make use of legisla- tive history believe that clear evidence of congr…

• #24

  Id., at 6; see also 120 Cong. Rec. 4528 (1974) (statement of Comm. Chairman Sen. Sparkman referring to the insertion of the language as a “minor” change). Thus, that statutory phrase is reasonably viewed as merely clarifying the in- tended initial scope of coverage (i. e., as an effort to better demarcate the bou…

• #25

  Interim Report and remand this matter to the Special Mas- ter for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 16 It is so ordered. 15 Because we decline to adopt the Special Master's Second Interim Re- port, we need not address the Defendant States' argument that we should not entertain the Second Interim R…