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DELAWARE v. PENNSYLVANIA AND WISCONSIN

Opinion of the Court

in these particular cases, the Disputed Instruments share two relevant similarities with money orders. Those instruments operate in the same manner as money orders do (as defined by contemporaneous dictionaries and our prior escheatment cases), and they also implicate the one feature of money orders that the text of the FDA explicitly identifies, insofar as the Disputed Instruments escheat inequitably solely to one State under our common-law rules due to the business practices of the company holding the funds.

First, the Disputed Instruments are similar to money orders in function and operation. The FDA does not define a “money order,” so the core features of that instrument are gleaned from a consideration of the “ ‘ordinary, contemporary, common meaning’ ” of the term. Sandifer v. United States Steel Corp., 571 U. S. 220, 227 (2014) (quoting Perrin v. United States, 444 U. S. 37, 42 (1979)). The parties cite a variety of contemporaneous dictionary definitions and encyclopedia descriptions for the term, and, at the most basic level, a money order is universally defined as a prepaid (or “purchased”) financial instrument used to transmit money to a named payee.^[1] Some of the dictionaries further indicate that a money order involves a “specified sum of money.” Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary 547 (1972); see also American Heritage Dictionary 847 (1969) (“a specified amount of money”).

These features—i.e., prepayment of a specified amount of

money to be transmitted to a named payee—generally ac-

↑ See, e.g., Black’s Law Dictionary 907 (5th ed. 1979); Glenn G. Munn’s Encyclopedia of Banking and Finance 581 (rev. 7th ed. 1973); Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary 547 (1972); 15 Compton’s Encyclopedia and Fact-Index 430 (1970); American Heritage Dictionary 847 (1969); Black’s Law Dictionary 1158 (rev. 4th ed. 1968). While these sources do not use the term “prepaid,” they describe a prepaid financial instrument because they define a money order as an instrument “purchased” by one party in order to transmit money to another party.

[1] See, e.g., Black’s Law Dictionary 907 (5th ed. 1979); Glenn G. Munn’s Encyclopedia of Banking and Finance 581 (rev. 7th ed. 1973); Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary 547 (1972); 15 Compton’s Encyclopedia and Fact-Index 430 (1970); American Heritage Dictionary 847 (1969); Black’s Law Dictionary 1158 (rev. 4th ed. 1968). While these sources do not use the term “prepaid,” they describe a prepaid financial instrument because they define a money order as an instrument “purchased” by one party in order to transmit money to another party.

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