Tennille v. Western Union Co., No. 13-1378 (10th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CaseAppellants Sikora Nelson and Paul Dorsey challenged the district court’s order requiring them to post an appeal bond of $1,007,294 in order to pursue their appeals objecting to a class action settlement. Plaintiffs initiated the underlying class action suit against Defendants Western Union Company and Western Union Financial Services, Inc. (collectively, “Western Union”), based on the fact that, at any given time, Western Union maintains between $130 and $180 million in wire transfers sent by Western Union customers that fail for some reason. These funds belong to Western Union’s customers, but Western Union returns this money (minus administrative fees) only when a customer requests a refund. Frequently, however, the customer is unaware that the wire transfer failed and thus does not know to ask Western Union to return his money. And Western Union, although possessing the customer’s contact information, does not notify the customer that his wire transfer failed, but instead holds the unclaimed money and earns interest on it. Eventually, after several years, the law of the state where the customer initiated the wire transfer requires Western Union to notify the customer that his unclaimed funds will soon escheat to the state. At that time, Western Union uses the contact information it had on record to give the customer this required notice. If the customer still fails to claim his money, those funds (minus the administrative fees) escheat to the relevant state, which then holds the funds until the customer claims them. Finding no reversible error in the district court's decision to impose the appeal bond, the Tenth Circuit affirmed, but reduced the amount of that bond.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.