Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-529_1b7d.pdf
Page Number: 9

Cite as:  602 U. S. ____ (2024) 

5 

Opinion of the Court 

Bank  of  America  to  pay  interest  on  the  escrow  account 
balances.  The court ruled that the New York interest-on-
escrow  law  applied  to  national  banks  such  as  Bank  of 
America, concluding that nothing in the National Bank Act 
or other federal law preempted the New York law.  Hymes 
v. Bank of America, N. A., 408 F. Supp. 3d 171, 198 (EDNY 
2019).

The  U. S.  Court  of  Appeals  for  the  Second  Circuit
reversed, holding that the New York interest-on-escrow law 
was  preempted  as  applied  to  national  banks.    Relying 
primarily on “an unbroken line of case law since McCulloch 
[v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819)],” the Court of Appeals 
held that federal law preempts any state law that “purports
to exercise control over a federally granted banking power,” 
regardless of “the magnitude of its effects.” 49 F. 4th 121, 
131 (2022).  Because the New York interest-on-escrow law 
“would exert control over” national banks’ power “to create
and fund escrow accounts,” the court concluded that the law 
was preempted.  Id., at 134. 

This Court granted certiorari.  601 U. S. ___ (2023). 

II 
Congress  has  instructed  courts  how  to  analyze  federal
preemption of state laws regulating national banks.  In the 
wake  of  the  2008  financial  crisis,  Congress  passed  and 
President  Obama  signed  the  Dodd-Frank  Wall  Street 
Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.  Pub. L. 111– 
203,  124  Stat.  1376.  Among  other  things,  Dodd-Frank 
established the controlling legal standard for when a “State 
consumer  financial  law,”  like  New  York’s  interest-on-
escrow  law,  is  preempted  with  respect  to  national  banks.
12 U. S. C. §25b.

To  begin,  Dodd-Frank  ruled  out  field  preemption.
§25b(b)(4) (federal banking law “does not occupy the field in 
any area of State law”).  As a result, we know that not all 
state laws regulating national banks are preempted.