Opinion ID: 3065051
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Status of Individual Plaintiffs’ Claims for

Text: Escheated Property In 1993, Plaintiff Agnes Suever (now deceased and represented in this lawsuit by her daughter, Plaintiff Madonna Suever, who held general and financial power of attorney over her) purchased a cashier’s check from World Savings and Loan Bank in the amount of $13,603.24. She then “forgot” about the check, which “fell under a piece of heavy furniture for quite some time.” The check escheated to the State in October 1999. According to the declaration of the Chief of the Division of Collections at the Controller’s Office, “[t]he fact that the Controller reimbursed World Savings for the full amount of the cashier’s check that had previously escheated to the State indicates that Agnes Suever reclaimed her property from World Savings rather than the Controller. If Mrs. Suever reclaimed her property from the State, the State would have paid her the statutory rate of interest then in effect.” In November 1991, 505 shares of Plaintiff Steve Tucker’s Intel stock escheated to the State. He alleges that his stock “was seized by the . . . Controller . . . without notice, his knowledge or consent, and while he was living in England as an English citizen.” In 1999, the State returned to Tucker $74,728, including $18,703 in interest. He claims that he is entitled to “roughly double” the interest he actually received because the State was able to “avoid[ ] borrowing costs” while it held his property. Plaintiff Alexander Vondjidis purchased stock from Hewlett Packard (HP) when he worked in HP’s office in Athens, SUEVER v. CONNELL 11841 Greece, in the 1970s. He stopped working for HP in 1978, and the Athens office closed in the early 1980s. His stock escheated in 1993. In 2001, he filed a claim for it, and the Controller returned to him $25,961, including $4464 in interest. General Electric transferred stock owned by Plaintiffs Richard and Jo-Ann Seitzinger to the State in 1994. The Seitzingers submitted a claim for the shares in September 2000, and the Controller returned to them $18,366, including $3986 in interest. Plaintiff Johnstone Whitley—whose daughter, Plaintiff Lynn Keith, holds power of attorney over him—claims that the Controller destroyed documentary evidence transferred to the State by a trust company that would have established their family’s interest in railroad rights of way. The Controller’s records show that the trust company sold the railroad rights of way in 1977 and could not locate certain beneficiaries of the trust, including Whitley’s father and grandfather, to pay them their share of the sale proceeds. In 1986, the Controller paid Whitley and a relative $15,581.66 each, plus an additional $3418.83 each, which (although not specifically designated as such) appears to be interest. Plaintiff Richard Valdes “was an individual shareholder, taxpayer, and former President of Columbia Yacht Corporation” who claims that “the Controller seized shares of stock [he] owned in Columbia Yacht.” He alleges that, when he sought return of these shares, “[t]he Controller’s Office informed [him] that all their records pertaining to his stock w[ere] deliberately destroyed pursuant to the Controller’s unwritten document destruction policy.” The Controller asserts that Valdes “admits that all of the shares he now claims are identified as belonging to other people, not him, and he admits that he knows of no documents that could prove his claim.” However, Valdez maintains that “because of either poor record keeping or deliberate wrongdoing, when 11842 SUEVER v. CONNELL the shares were seized, they were listed under the name ‘Columbia Yacht Shareholders’ instead of [the] individual names.” It is true, though, as the Controller points out, that Valdes has admitted in a related case that it is “possible, but not probable” that his memory regarding his ownership of the shares is inaccurate.