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Unclaimed Property And Due Process: Justifying 'Revenue-Raising' Modern Escheat, Teagan J. Gregory

Michigan Law Review

States have long claimed the right to take custody of presumably abandoned property and hold it for the benefit of the true owner under the doctrine of escheat. In the face of increasing fiscal challenges, states have worked to increase their collection of unclaimed property via new escheat legislation that appears to bear little or no relation to protecting the interests of owners. Holders of unclaimed property have raised substantive due process challenges in response to these modern escheat statutes. This Note contends that two categories of these disputed laws-those shortening dormancy periods and those allowing states to estimate a …