Harlan F. Stone

“ Apart from questions which may arise under the national banking laws in the case of national banks, it is no longer open to doubt that a state, by a procedure satisfying constitutional requirements, may compel surrender to it of deposit balances, when there is substantial ground for belief that they have been abandoned or forgotten, Security Sav. Bank v. People of State of California, supra, certainly when the state acquires them subject to all lawful demands of the depositors. ”

“ The fundamental requirement of due process is an opportunity to be heard upon such notice and proceedings as are adequate to safeguard the right for which the constitutional protection is invoked. If that is preserved, the demands of due process are fulfilled. ”

“ The statutory procedure, so far as it affects depositors, is in the nature of a proceeding in rem, in the course of which property, against which a claim is asserted, is seized or sequestered, and held subject to the appearance and presentation of claims by all those who assert an adverse interest in it. In all such proceedings the seizure of the property is in itself a form of notice of the claim asserted, to those who may claim an interest in the property. See Corn Exchange Bank v. ”

“ The success of almost all commercial banks depends upon their ability to obtain loans from depositors, and these might well hesitate to subject their funds to possible confiscation.'
The unusual alteration of depositors' accounts to which the Court referred was plainly the statutory declaration of escheat of depositors' accounts merely because of their dormancy for the specified period, without any determination of abandonment in fact. ”

“ And the deposits need not be surrendered, if the depositors or the bank make it appear that abandonment has not occurred. This is not confiscation or even an attempted deprivation of property. Escheat or forfeiture to the state may follow, but only on proof of abandonment in fact. We cannot say that the protective custody of long inactive bank accounts, for which the Kentucky statute provides, and which in many circumstances may operate for the benefit and security of depositors, see Provident Institution for Savings v. ”