In the United States Court of Federal Claims No
In the United States Court of Federal Claims No. 16-43C (Filed: August 8, 2017) ) Keywords: Summary Judgment; ANDREA LEA, Auditor of the State of ) Breach of Contract; U.S. Savings Arkansas, ) Bonds; Preemption; Intergovernmental ) Immunity; Due Process Clause of the Plaintiff, ) Fourteenth Amendment; Breach of ) Contract; 31 C.F.R. § 315.20(b). v. ) ) THE UNITED STATES OF ) AMERICA, ) ) Defendant. ) ) David H. Thompson, Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff. Peter A. Patterson and John D. Ohlendorf, Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, and Joseph H. Meltzer and Melissa L. Troutner, Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check LLP, Radnor, PA, Of Counsel. Eric P. Bruskin, Senior Trial Counsel, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, with whom were Steven J. Gillingham, Assistant Director, Robert E. Kirschman, Jr., Director, and Chad A. Readler, Acting Assistant Attorney General, for Defendant. Theodore C. Simms, II, Senior Counsel, U.S. Department of the Treasury, and Albert S. Iarossi, Trial Attorney, Commercial Litigation Branch, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Of Counsel. OPINION AND ORDER KAPLAN, Judge. In this breach-of-contract case, Plaintiff Andrea Lea, Auditor of the State of Arkansas (Arkansas), claims that Arkansas has obtained title under the state’s Unclaimed Property Act to a large but unknown number of matured, unredeemed United States savings bonds, and that the government has wrongfully failed to redeem those bonds. The bonds, issued by the United States Department of the Treasury (Treasury), carry thirty- or forty-year maturity periods. Although Arkansas claims that it owns the bonds, it does not possess the bond certificates that Treasury issued when the bonds were purchased.
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