Opinion ID: 2075955
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 18

Heading: Riggs' interpretation.

Text: Riggs' response to the District's interpretation of Section 42-235(a) is as follows: The District assumes that each failure of a holder to deliver each item of property is a breach of `duty' under the Act. Dist.Br. at 46. The concept of duty, however, need not be so finely ground. Under a more reasonable view of it, a duty is violated when the abandoned property subject to a given report is withheld. The reporting requirement is set forth in D.C.Code § 42-217(a), and § 42-219(a) specifies that a reporting person shall, within six months ... pay or deliver to the Mayor all abandoned property specified in the report. (Emphasis supplied). Accordingly, even if the District's claims in this case were valid, Riggs failed to report and deliver unclaimed property on only one occasionin response to the District's demand letter of February 25, 1986. Reply' brief at 48 n. 46. We think that Riggs' argument is likewise flawed. The UPA does not impose a single duty upon holders to report and deliver, nor does it say that there shall be a single penalty no matter how many violations they might commit. On the contrary, a variety of duties are described in the Act. Holders must, among other things, report abandoned property, § 42-217, and deliver it, § 42-219. They may not impose service charges unless certain conditions have been met. § 42-217(e). They must notify owners of apparently abandoned property of the presumption of abandonment. § 42-217(e). They are required to permit inspection of business records to determine whether they are in possession of property subject to the Act. § 42-230(b). Holders must also retain relevant business records for ten years after the date any property may have become reportable. § 42-232(a). Even if one rejects, as we do, the District's draconian contention that each innocent error about any single official check or deposit must cost the holder $1,000 if it is not corrected within ten days, a holder may be liable for several thousand dollars in penalties for failing to perform a number of different duties. Recognition that there are various categories of duties under the Act disposes of Riggs' contention that it is subject, at most, to a penalty of $1,000. Even so, a construction of the statute which limits to $1,000 the civil penalty for failure to file one report of all of the holder's abandoned property also leads to results which may well be at odds with what the Council intended. First, a bank which is in possession of 1000 reportable items would pay the same penalty under this approach if it reported 999 of them as it would if it reported none. Second, penalties aggregating a few thousand dollars are unlikely to achieve the Council's stated purpose of making it uneconomical for holders not to comply with the requirements of the Act. The Council was surely concerned with avoiding a situation in which the statutory penalty would be regarded by potential violators... as nothing more than an acceptable cost of violation, rather than as a deterrence to violation. United States v. ITT Continental Baking Co., 420 U.S. 223, 231, 95 S.Ct. 926, 932, 43 L.Ed.2d 148 (1975). [T]o be an effective deterrent to violations, civil penalties should be large enough to hurt the offender. State ex rel Brown v. Howard, 3 Ohio App.3d 189, 191, 444 N.E.2d 469, 471 (1981). It is questionable whether Riggs' interpretation, or any construction based on the same general approach, can effectively vindicate this statutory purpose. [42]