A California law that allows the state to seize unclaimed property after three years without making much of an attempt to contact the owners will not be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, but Justice Samuel Alito warned that such laws could face a serious constitutional challenge in the future. 
The “convoluted history” of the lawsuit seeking to overturn California’s Unclaimed Property Law made it a bad candidate for appeal to the Supreme Court, Alito wrote in a concurrence to the court’s decision not to hear the case.

Property of the state? (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
“But the constitutionality of current state escheat laws is a question that may merit review in a future case,” Alito wrote in a note joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. Among other problems challengers have cited, California sends “notice” to owners of unclaimed property by mailing it to the same stale address that established the fact it was “unclaimed” in the first place.
As in many other states, California has tightened the period for establishing “unclaimed” assets, from 15 years when the UPL was first passed in 1959 to seven years in 1976, five in 1988 and three years since 1990. Along the way it loosened its notice procedure.

Escheat laws have become a popular source of revenue for states,raising billions of dollars a year. The process is turbocharged by paying commissions to private firms to scare up bank accounts, utility deposits, safe deposit boxes and other property that has seemingly been abandoned by its owners. Like the death tax, it’s a convenient way to seize assets when their possession is in transition, in this case from a bank or other institution to a state-run fund for unclaimed property.