Delaware v. Pennsylvania

P R E L I M I N A R Y P R I N T
Volume 598 U. S. Part 1
Pages 115–141
OFFICIAL REPORTS
OF
T H E S U P R E M E C O U R T
February 28, 2023
REBECCA A. WOMELDORF
reporter of decisions
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N O T I C E : 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,
pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.

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OCTOBER
TERM, 2022
115
Syllabus
DELAWARE v. PENNSYLVANIA 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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116 DELA
WARE v. PENNSYLVANIA
Syllabus
be “third party bank check[s],” which are excluded from the FDA and
wou
ld 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
i
n 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 DELA
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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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Opinion of the Court
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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120 DELA
WARE v. PENNSYLVANIA
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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Opinion of the Court
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 i n the St ate 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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Agent Checks and Teller's Checks (collectively, the Disputed
Instr
uments) 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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Opinion of the Court
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 in fra, 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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128 DELA
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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 DELA
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Opinion of the Court
The context in which the FDA arises underscores the
meani
ngfulness 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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§ 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 DELA
WARE v. PENNSYLVANIA
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 DELA
WARE v. PENNSYLVANIA
Opinion of the Court
ments generally do keep adequate records, and therefore
St
ates 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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IV
D
elaware argues that even if the Disputed Instruments
qua lify as “other similar wr itten instrument[s] ” with in
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 DELA
WARE v. PENNSYLVANIA
Opinion of the Court
carved out of the statute per the “third party bank check”
lang
uage.
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
f
nancial 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 DELA
WARE v. PENNSYLVANIA
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
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Opinion of the Court
tent may illuminate ambiguous text.” Milner v. Depart-
men
t 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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WARE v. PENNSYLVANIA
Opinion of the Court
cheatment of “money order[s], traveler's check[s], [and] other
si
milar 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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Opinion of the Court
ion.
15
W
e 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”