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Three Against Two: On The Difference Between Property And Contract And The Example Of Deposit Accounts In Bankruptcy, Jeanne L. Schroeder, David G. Carlson
Three Against Two: On The Difference Between Property And Contract And The Example Of Deposit Accounts In Bankruptcy, Jeanne L. Schroeder, David G. Carlson
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In Citizen's Bank v. Strumpf (1995), Justice Scalia announced that deposit accounts are not "property". Five years later, the Uniform Commercial Code was amended to make deposit accounts collateral for the depositary bank maintaining the account, thereby crowding the field previously occupied by the common law right of setoff. Security interests attach to personal "property." Security interests attach to deposit accounts. Deposit accounts, by syllogistic logic, are property. Does this mean that the UCC has overruled the Supreme Court? We argue not. A deposit account is a mere contract in the two-person universe that contract law presupposes. A deposit account …