For the past five years, the Michigan courts have wrestled with the question of whether Michigan has unlimited time to enforce annual filing obligations for unclaimed property reporting—despite the statutory time limit. On April 3, 2026, the Michigan Supreme Court issued an order in The Walt Disney Company v. Rachael Eubanks.1 In its order, the court denied Disney’s application for leave to appeal the Michigan Court of Appeals’ judgment, summarily stating that it was not persuaded that the questions presented warranted review. So the question remains: Can the State enforce payment of property from filing obligations arising decades earlier?
The Court of Appeals ruling in favor of the State Treasurer—which held that a Notice of Determination constitutes a “new duty” subject to a new limitations period—stands. The courts have declined to enjoin the State Treasurer from seeking to enforce her Notice. But the Michigan courts expressly distinguished—and refused to answer—the question of whether she could succeed on the merits in such an action.
Background
In 2013, Michigan initiated audits against two companies as part of multi-state unclaimed property examinations seeking records as far back as 2002. Those states concluded the audits eight years later, in 2021. At that point, Michigan issued “notices of examination determination” (the “Notices”) seeking in excess of $750,000 collectively from the two holders. Those amounts related to transactions that, if reportable, would have been due to the state over a decade earlier, years before the audit had commenced.
The holders filed suit in circuit court seeking a declaratory judgment and injunction seeking to prevent Michigan from enforcing the Notices on the grounds that the audit findings encompassed years for which enforcement was barred by Michigan law. In support of that argument, the holders relied upon MCL 567.250(2), which provides that “an action or proceeding shall not be commenced by the administrator with respect to any duty of a holder under … [Michigan’s unclaimed property law] more than 10 years… after the duty arose.” The holders argued that an audit is not an “action or proceeding” that would toll the statute, so any findings could be enforced only for reporting obligations within the limitations period. In short, the Treasurer could no longer enforce the reporting obligations for earlier years reviewed in the audit.
The circuit court granted declaratory judgment and an injunction in favor of the holders, and in a January 19, 2023 decision, the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Court of Appeals concluded that an audit is distinct from “an action or proceeding” and does not toll the statute of limitations for the Treasurer to enforce audit findings.
Actions, Proceedings, and Examinations
The Treasurer appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court, which remanded to the Court of Appeals on the following questions: “assuming that an examination is a ‘proceeding’ for purposes of MCL 567.250(2): (1) whether the commencement of the examination tolled the statute of limitations in MCL 567.250(2); and (2) whether the Treasurer must still file a lawsuit within the applicable time frame to avoid the lawsuit being time-barred.”2 On November 9, 2023, the Michigan Court of Appeals issued an advisory opinion, on remand, holding that, if an examination were an “action or proceeding,” the state does not need to file a lawsuit to enforce unclaimed property liability within the statute of limitations.3 The case then went back to the Michigan Supreme Court.
On March 24, 2025, the Michigan Supreme Court added more complexity to the question, distinguishing between the initiation and conclusion of an audit with respect to the statute of limitations.4
Initiation of an Audit
The Michigan Supreme Court’s March 24, 2025 decision held that an examination is not an “action,” but is a “proceeding” under MCL 567.250(2). So long as the Treasurer initiated the examination within the limitations period, it may review records for that “lookback” period. The court suggested it would be absurd to find that an audit is not a proceeding, because if that were the case, “the Treasurer’s examinations could not encompass all records within that period because the statute of limitations for the oldest records would continually expire during the examination.”5
However, issuing a notice to conduct an audit, the court found, does not toll the statute of limitations with respect to enforcing the holder’s duty to report or remit property. The court reasoned that the statute of limitations begins to run at the time the holder’s duty arose (i.e. when the holder is required to file and remit unclaimed property) and that the Treasurer’s review of records itself does not create any new duty of payment with which a holder must comply. In other words, an audit notice governs whether the Treasurer can look but does not impact what the Treasurer can touch.
Conclusion of an Audit
The court separately asked what could happen at the end of the audit when the Treasurer had determined an amount was to be remitted. It posed the question of whether, at the end of the audit, the Treasurer could issue a notice of determination, which would require a holder to pay previously unremitted amounts, and whether such notice would trigger a new duty on the holder to remit the funds. The court grounded this ambiguity in the penalty provisions in Section 567.255, imposing penalties on holders for failing to comply with its duties to remit unclaimed property generally. In court, the Treasurer argued that it could simply order a holder to remit property, creating a new obligation and triggering penalties for failure to comply.
The court ultimately held that whether those penalty provisions interacted with a holder's right to appeal from a notice of audit determination “to impose a legal duty of postexamination compliance on a holder that is distinct from the annual duty to report and remit abandoned property.”6 The Supreme Court remanded the case back to the Court of Appeals to determine that question.
On August 18, 2025, the Michigan Court of Appeals issued its decision on remand. The Court of Appeals found that a Notice of Determination at the end of an audit constitutes a “distinct legal duty” to pay particular unclaimed property—separate from the Act’s annual duty to report—and that the statute of limitations on the state’s right to enforce that distinct duty begins to run upon issuance of the Notice.7 As support for its decision, the court noted that Michigan law imposes penalties for failure to remit property that the Treasurer demands, and that such penalties exceed those penalties for failure to remit in accordance with the routine reporting cycle.
As it relates to the Dine Brands and Disney cases in particular, the decision means that the Treasurer is not barred from filing an action to enforce her Notice of Determination because the statute of limitations has not yet expired. But that does not mean she would succeed on the merits.
Treasurer’s right to be heard v. right to payment
Critically, the Court of Appeals took pains to distinguish the Treasurer’s right to seek enforcement from her right to succeed in that action. The court expressly declined to decide how far back a Notice of Determination could reach or whether the Treasurer is entitled to payment of the amounts that the Notice demands. In footnote 11, the court stated:
We emphasize that the sole issue in the present cases is whether the Treasurer is time-barred from filing a future enforcement action. The merits of any such future enforcement action are, of course, not at issue here and would be the subject of any future litigation. Id.
In other words, the Treasurer may have her day in court, but she may not win. The Treasurer’s ability to enforce Michigan’s Uniform Unclaimed Property Act does not necessarily encompass some separate authority to order holders to pay property independent of the statutory reporting rules. A notice of determination is, necessarily, the Treasurer’s finding that the holder failed to pay pursuant to its obligations in the time period required under the statute. It seems difficult to reconcile the statutory reporting obligations and limitations period with an untethered ability of the Treasurer to require payment of any amount at any time and restart her window to enforce that “new” obligation.
However, the question before the court was simply whether the Treasurer could bring an action. By filing for an injunction, the holders argued that the Treasurer had no right to be heard. The court determined she did. In so finding, the decisions expressly put aside the question of whether the Treasurer could succeed in enforcing payment in such an action.
Our Perspective
The Court of Appeals’ August 2025 decision is the final chapter in this closely-watched story, given the Supreme Court’s denial of review.8 Upon initial review, that decision appears to render any statute of limitations on a holder’s reporting obligation as meaningless. However, when viewed in context of the request for an injunction, the courts’ decisions merely skirted the substantive question in favor of a procedural one. The Michigan decisions find that the Treasurer has ten years from the holder’s initial duty of reporting to commence an audit, and that audit can seemingly proceed for an indefinite period. The Treasurer may issue a Notice of Determination with audit findings at any point. The Treasurer then has another ten years to bring an action or proceeding to enforce that Notice.
But the Michigan courts left open the question of whether future courts would enforce a Notice of Determination based on unenforceable reporting obligations. Were a holder to appeal such a notice, the appellate process would address that question. The recent line of decisions caution that failure to appeal the Treasurer’s notice may carry penalties and the Treasurer has ten years from issuance of the Notice to seek enforcement. Fortunately, the legislature has provided a clear mechanism for holder appeals. In short, holders should strongly consider appealing any Notice of Determination based on expired reporting obligations.
1. Walt Disney Company v. Rachael Eubanks, No. 169237 (Mich. Apr. 3, 2026).
2. Dine Brands Glob., Inc. v. Eubanks, 994 N.W.2d 771 (2023).
3. See Walt Disney Co. v. Eubanks, No. 360291, 2023 WL 7455466 (Mich. Ct. App. Nov. 9, 2023).
4. See Dine Brands Glob., Inc. v. Eubanks, No. 165391, 2025 WL 898837 (Mich. Mar. 24, 2025).
5. Id. at *13.
6. Id. at *16.
7. Walt Disney Co. v. Eubanks, No. 360291, 2025 WL 2393837, at *7 (Mich. Ct. App. Aug. 18, 2025).
8. The Michigan Supreme Court’s April 3rd denial makes the Court of Appeals’ August 2025 decision final. On remand, the trial court need only enter summary disposition in favor of the Treasurer.
Client Alert 2026-105