Chris Taylor v. John Chiang

I. INTRODUCTION

This putative class action has a long and tortuous history in this Court. Presumably this opinion will be known as Taylor V. Appellants challenge the constitutionality of California’s Unclaimed Property Law (“UPL”), which provides for the conditional transfer of unclaimed property to the State of California. While this Court has previously held the UPL facially constitutional, see Taylor III, 525 F.3d at 1289, the instant suit challenges the California State Controller Betty Yee’s (“the Controller”) application of the statute. Appellants claim that the procedures used both before unclaimed property is transferred to the Controller (“pre-escheat”) and after it is transferred (“post-escheat”) violate Appellants’ due process rights. The district court dismissed Appellants’ suit with prejudice for failure to state a claim. We AFFIRM.

Appellants’ first and primary argument is that the pre-escheat notice provided by the Controller is constitutionally inadequate because the Controller does not attempt to locate property owners using the data sources required by Section 1531.5 of the UPL. Appellants further argue that the Controller’s pre-escheat notice process…