New Jersey Retail Merchants Ass'n v. Sidamon-Eristoff
Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit · 2012-01-05 · cited 103×
The case concerned challenges by associations of retailers and issuers of stored-value cards (SVCs or gift cards) to New Jersey’s Chapter 25, which for the first time subjected unused gift cards to the state’s unclaimed-property law by requiring issuers to remit their value to the state after two years of inactivity. The Third Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of a preliminary injunction in part and denial in part. It held that the issuers were likely to succeed on their Contract Clause claim against retroactive application of the law to existing cards and on their federal common-law preemption claim against the statute’s “place-of-purchase” presumption for determining which state could escheat the cards. It rejected the issuers’ federal preemption and substantive-due-process challenges to the remaining provisions, including the requirement that issuers collect and retain purchasers’ ZIP codes, finding those provisions rationally related to legitimate state interests and severable from the enjoined portions.