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10 

CANTERO v. BANK OF AMERICA, N. A. 

Opinion of the Court 

State.  Id.,  at  236.    The  Anderson  Court  stated  that  the 
Kentucky  law  did  not  “not  infringe  or  interfere  with  any
authorized function of the bank.”  Id., at 249.  Even though
national banks possess a federal power to collect deposits, 
“an inseparable incident” of that power is the “obligation to 
pay”  the  deposits  “to  the  persons  entitled  to  demand 
payment  according  to  the  law  of  the  state  where  it  does
business.”  Id.,  at  248–249.    And  Kentucky  law  simply
allowed  the  State  to  “demand  payment  of  the  accounts  in
the  same  way  and  to  the  same  extent  that  the  depositors
could” after the depositors abandoned the account.  Id., at 
249.  Therefore,  the  Anderson  Court  concluded,  Kentucky
law did not “infringe the national banking laws or impose
an  undue  burden  on  the  performance  of  the  banks’ 
functions.”  Id., at 248; see also id., at 249. 

Anderson  distinguished  a  seemingly  similar  California 
law at issue in an earlier case, First National Bank of San 
Jose  v.  California,  262  U. S.  366  (1923),  where  the  Court 
had found the state law to be preempted. 

In  First  National  Bank  of  San  Jose,  the  California  law 
allowed the State to claim deposits that went “ ‘unclaimed 
for more than twenty years.’ ” Ibid.  Unlike Kentucky’s law,
however, California did not require proof that the account
was abandoned.  Rather, the California law “attempt[ed] to
qualify  in  an  unusual  way  agreements  between  national 
banks  and  their  customers.”  Id.,  at  370.    Therefore,  the 
Court  noted,  the  California  law  could  cause  customers  to 
“hesitate”  before  depositing  funds  at  the  bank—and  thus
interfere  with  the  “efficiency”  of  the  national  bank  in
receiving deposits.  Id., at 369–370. 

Anderson’s reasons for differentiating the California law 
at  issue  in  First  National  Bank  of  San  Jose  help
demonstrate  when  a  state  law  regulating  national  banks 
crosses the line from permissible to preempted.  In contrast 
to  the  California  law  in  First  National  Bank  of  San  Jose, 
the  Kentucky  law  in  Anderson  demanded  proof  that  the