502
Opinion of the Court
standings that stem from an independent source such as state law." Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U. S. 564, 577 (1972). Accord, e. g., Bishop v. Wood, 426 U. S. 341, 344-347 (1976); Paul v. Davis, 424 U. S. 693, 710-712 (1976). See also Barnhill v. Johnson, 503 U. S. 393, 398 (1992) ("In the absence of any controlling federal law, 'property' and 'interests in property' are creatures of state law"). Furthermore, law that creates property necessarily defines the legal relationships under which certain parties ("debtors") must discharge obligations to others ("creditors").
To define "debtor" as "the last person who ha[s] a claim to the funds as an asset that would appropriately be reflected in [his] net worth," Report of Special Master 32, would convert a term rich with prescriptive legal content into little more than a description of bookkeeping phenomena. Funds held by a debtor become subject to escheat because the debtor has no interest in the funds—precisely the opposite of having "a claim to the funds as an asset." We have recognized as much in cases upholding a State's power to escheat neglected bank deposits. Charters, bylaws, and contracts of deposit do not give a bank the right to retain abandoned deposits, and a law requiring the delivery of such deposits to the State affects no property interest belonging to the bank. Security Savings Bank v. California, 263 U. S. 282, 285-286 (1923); Provident Institution for Savings v. Malone, 221 U. S. 660, 665-666 (1911). Thus, "deposits are debtor obligations of the bank," and a State may "protect the interests of depositors" as creditors by assuming custody over accounts "inactive so long as to be presumptively abandoned." Anderson Nat. Bank v. Luckett, 321 U. S. 233, 241 (1944) (emphasis added). Such "disposition of abandoned property is a function of the state," a sovereign "exercise of a regulatory power" over property and the private legal obligations inherent in property. Standard Oil Co. v. New Jersey, 341 U. S. 428, 436 (1951).
Page: Index Previous 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007