Newest SCOTUS Justice Has a First

Jackson writes her first majority opinion in unanimous decision on Delaware and MoneyGram
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 1, 2023 1:00 AM CST
Jackson Writes First SCOTUS Ruling
FILE - Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson stands as she and members of the Supreme Court pose for a new group portrait following her addition, at the Supreme Court building in Washington, Oct. 7, 2022.   (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

The newest Supreme Court justice has written her first majority opinion. Ketanji Brown Jackson authored the ruling in a case involving a dispute between Delaware and other states regarding MoneyGram, the second-biggest money transfer company in the world. The company is incorporated in Delaware, and the state kept hundreds of millions of dollars in uncashed MoneyGram checks—but the high court unanimously decided Delaware was wrong to do that, and the money generally should have gone to the states where the MoneyGram products were purchased, Reuters reports. Jackson's first-ever SCOTUS opinion was a dissenting opinion she wrote regarding a death row inmate in November of 2022, Fox News reports.

Under a power known as escheatment, a state can typically take possession of unclaimed property located within the state, Jackson wrote. But a 1974 federal law regarding abandoned money orders and traveler's checks generally gives claiming rights for those products to the states where they were purchased, she wrote. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arkansas, and other states brought the case against Delaware after Delaware took possession of $250 million in uncashed MoneyGram checks when just about $1 million of those had actually been purchased in Delaware. With so many big companies incorporated in Delaware, unclaimed property brings the state a lot of money: At $448.6 million in 2021, it was Delaware's third-biggest revenue source. (More Ketanji Brown Jackson stories.)

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