Stanley Forman Reed

“ Foreign corporations must obtain state authority to do business, segregate securities, submit to examination and state process. The business activities connected with the purchase of insurance by New York residents normally take place in New York. It is the beneficiary of the policy not the insurer who has abandoned the moneys. Undoubtedly the relationship is very close. [12] Certainly the relationship between New York and foreign insurance companies as to policies here under ciscussion, is as close as that between the company and its state of incorporation. ”

“ In addition to objections under New York law, appellants raised in their complaint and have consistently maintained that the statute impairs the obligation of contract within the meaning of Art. I, § 10, of the Constitution and deprives them of their property without due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment. Their argument under the Contract Clause is that the statute transforms into a liquidated obligation an obligation which was previously only conditional. ”

“ The question is whether the State of New York has sufficient contacts with the transactions here in question to justify the exertion of the power to seize abandoned moneys due to its residents. Appellants urge that the following considerations should be determinative in choosing the state of incorporation as the state for conservation of abandoned indebtedness, if such moneys are to be taken from the possession of the corporations. It is pointed out that the present residence of missing policyholders is unknown; that with our shifting population residence is a changeable factor ”

“ Since the rights and liabilities growing out of such policies are, to a vast extent, the result of a process that concerns two or more States, their interests may come into conflict when, in exigent search for revenue, they invoke the opportunities of escheat against unclaimed proceeds from insurance policies. ”

“ We see no constitutional reason why a state may not proceed administratively, as here, to take over the care of abandoned property rather than adopt a plan through judicial process as in Security Sav. ”

“ VII provide that insurance corporations doing business in New York shall make an annual report of abandoned property falling within the definitions of § 700, the lists shall be advertised, and if the abandoned property advertised remains unclaimed, the amounts due and owing shall be paid to the state comptroller so as to be in the care and custody of the state. Art. ”