Delaware Code Title 12 Sec. 1153 – Effect of payment or delivery of property to State Escheator
(a) Unless otherwise addressed in subsection (b) of this section, the holder‘s payment or delivery of property to the State Escheator terminates any legal relationship between the holder and the owner with respect to the property reported and releases and discharges the holder from any and all liability to the owner, the owner’s heirs, personal representatives, successors, or assigns by reason of such payment or delivery, regardless of whether such property is in fact and in law abandoned property and such delivery and payment may be pleaded as a bar to recovery and shall be a conclusive defense in any suit or action brought by such owner, the owner’s heirs, personal representatives, successors and assigns or any claimant against the holder by reason of such delivery or payment. Application of this subsection is mutually exclusive of subsection (b) of this section and, accordingly, may not be applied in conjunction with subsection (b) of this section.
Terms Used In Delaware Code Title 12 Sec. 1153
- Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
- Escheat: Reversion of real or personal property to the state when 1) a person dies without leaving a will and has no heirs, or 2) when the property (such as a bank account) has been inactive for a certain period of time. Source: OCC
- Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
- Holder: means any person having possession, custody, or control of the property of another person and includes a post office, a depository, a bailee, a trustee, a receiver or other liquidating officer, a fiduciary, a governmental department, institution or agency, a municipal corporation and the fiscal officers thereof, a public utility, service corporation, and every other legal entity incorporated or created under the laws of this State or doing business in this State. See Delaware Code Title 12 Sec. 1130
- Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
- Owner: means a person, or the person's legal representative when acting on behalf of the person, that has a legal, beneficial, or equitable interest in property subject to this chapter. See Delaware Code Title 12 Sec. 1130
- Person: means an individual; estate; business association; public corporation; government or governmental subdivision, agency, or instrumentality; or other legal entity. See Delaware Code Title 12 Sec. 1130
- Property: means tangible property described in § 1134 of this title or a fixed and certain interest in intangible property held, issued, or owed in the course of a holder's business or by a government, governmental subdivision, agency, or instrumentality. See Delaware Code Title 12 Sec. 1130
- Security: means any of the following:
- State: means a state of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, or any territory or insular possession subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. See Delaware Code Title 12 Sec. 1130
- State Escheator: means the person responsible for the administration and enforcement of this chapter, as established by § 1102 of this title and § 363 of Title 30. See Delaware Code Title 12 Sec. 1130
- United States: includes its territories and possessions and the District of Columbia. See Delaware Code Title 1 Sec. 302
(b) Upon the delivery in good faith of a duplicate certificated security to the State Escheator or the registration of an uncertificated security to the State Escheator under § 1152 of this title, the holder and any transfer agent, registrar, or other person acting for or on behalf of the holder in executing or delivering such duplicate certificate or effectuating such registration, is relieved of all liability of every kind to every person, including any person acquiring the original of a certificated security or the duplicate of a certificated security issued to the State Escheator for any losses or damages resulting to any person by issuance and delivery to the State Escheator of the duplicate certificated security or the registration to the holder’s name of an uncertificated security.
(c) If a holder pays or delivers property to the State Escheator in good faith and thereafter another person claims the property from the holder or another state claims the money or property under its laws relating to escheat or abandoned or unclaimed property, the State Escheator, acting on behalf of the State, upon written notice of the claim, shall defend the holder against the claim and indemnify the holder against any liability on the claim, except that a holder shall not be indemnified against penalties imposed by another state. For purposes of this subsection, state” includes any foreign jurisdiction or subdivision of a foreign jurisdiction that is not a state of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, or any territory or insular possession subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
(d) For the purposes of this section, “good faith” means that all of the following apply:
(1) Payment or delivery was made in a reasonable attempt to comply with this chapter.
(2) The person delivering the property was not a fiduciary then in breach of trust in respect to the property and had a reasonable basis for believing, based on the facts then known to the person, that the property was abandoned for the purposes of this chapter.
(3) There is no showing that the records pursuant to which the delivery was made did not meet reasonable commercial standards of practice in the industry.
(e) Under § 1155(b) of this title, at the request of a holder, the State Escheator may allow the holder to pay over or deliver property otherwise properly payable to the State but against which a full period of dormancy has not yet run. If the State Escheator grants the holder’s request and accepts the property, the holder is entitled to the protections of this section and the property is to be treated generally as if it had been paid over or delivered after a full period of dormancy had run. Section 1155 of this title does not apply to property accepted by the State Escheator under this subsection until a full period of dormancy has run against the property.
(f) For the purposes of this section, “penalties” means a penalty, interest, any other fee or fine, or damages that may accrue in association with nonperformance of a holder’s statutory obligations.
81 Del. Laws, c. 1, § 2; 81 Del. Laws, c. 48, § 2; 83 Del. Laws, c. 59, § 6;