CHARLESTON W.Va. (WVDN) — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, along with a bipartisan coalition of 30 states, announced that they have reached a settlement in a case against the state of Delaware. The litigation was in connection with unclaimed property involving MoneyGram transfers.
The Attorney General joined a multistate coalition in 2016 in filing suit in the U.S. Supreme Court to recoup hundreds of millions of dollars that rightfully belongs to West Virginia and other states—unclaimed money from uncashed money orders sent through MoneyGram and wrongly handed over to Delaware.
“This is a great victory for West Virginia and our partner states—the money rightfully belongs to West Virginians,” Attorney General Morrisey said. “Every dollar unlawfully held elsewhere represents another dollar of accrued interest that our state can utilize to improve its schools, parks, roads, etc.”
In 2023, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the funds should be returned to the states where unclaimed money orders or similar products were purchased.
Under the terms of the settlement, Delaware will transfer more than $102 million of the property that MoneyGram reported to Delaware from 2011 to 2017 to the coalition states, based on each monetary instrument’s place of purchase. Delaware’s transfer represents roughly half of the report years disputed in the litigation.
In addition, approximately $89 million deposited by MoneyGram in a litigation escrow account from 2018 to 2022, plus interest earned, will be distributed among all 50 states based on each instrument’s place of purchase. The coalition states will receive nearly $55 million, plus earned interest, from the escrow account.
States will assume custody and responsibility to return any property received under the terms of the settlement or from the escrow account to owners, including paying any claims for the property.
West Virginia is set to receive roughly $3,823,000.04, plus interest.
West Virginia joined the Arkansas-, Pennsylvania-, California-, Texas- and Wisconsin-led coalition with Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.
