Article
Three Against Two: On the Difference Between Property and Contract and the Example of Deposit Accounts in Bankruptcy
Emory Bankruptcy Developments Journal
(2019)
Abstract
In Citizen's Bank v. Strumpf (1995), Justice Scalia announced that deposit accounts are not "property". Five years later, the Uniform Commercial Code was amended to make deposit accounts collateral for the depositary bank maintaining the account, thereby crowding the field previously occupied by the common law right of setoff. Security interests attach to personal "property." Security interests attach to deposit accounts. Deposit accounts, by syllogistic logic, are property. Does this mean that the UCC has overruled the Supreme Court? We argue not. A deposit account is a mere contract in the two-person universe that contract law presupposes. A deposit account is property in a universe of three or more persons. We argue that Justice Scalia can be vindicated by the text of the Uniform Commercial Code and that the 2000 amendments do not overrule the Supreme Court. The investigation reveals the proper vector spaces that contract and property logically inhabit.
Keywords
- Bankruptcy,
- deposit accounts,
- banks,
- setoff,
- secured transactions,
- contracts,
- property,
- UCC,
- Article 9
Disciplines
Publication Date
2019
Citation Information
Jeanne L. Schroeder and David G. Carlson. "Three Against Two: On the Difference Between Property and Contract and the Example of Deposit Accounts in Bankruptcy" Emory Bankruptcy Developments Journal Vol. 35 Iss. 2 (2019) p. 417 - 508 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/david_carlson/70/