3rd Circuit says feds missed forfeiture deadline, awards gold coins worth $80M to dealer's heirs
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Saying that the federal government cannot seize property without filing a civil forfeiture action, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia on Friday reversed a jury verdict awarding vintage gold coins worth perhaps $80 million to the U.S. Treasury.
Instead, because the feds missed a 90-day filing deadline under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals awarded the 10 rare $20 double eagles to the heirs of a coin dealer, David, Joan and Roy Langbord.
“The ownership of the property in question and how the appellants obtained possession of it are hotly disputed, but the facts relevant to the disposition of this appeal are not,” the panel states in its Friday opinion (PDF), later ruling: “The government failed to return the Langbords’ property or institute a judicial civil forfeiture proceeding within 90 days. Having failed to do so, it must return the double eagles to the Langbords.”
A dissenting judge agreed that the government had acted unconstitutionally by simply refusing to return the coins after the family of Israel Switt brought them to the U.S. Mint to be authenticated. However, she said forfeiture of the coins to the Langbords was not the correct remedy.
The majority should have taken into account the result of a federal district court trial in what effectively was a forfeiture case, wrote Judge Dolores Sloviter. She said the majority should have upheld a jury verdict and the court’s ruling in a declaratory judgment action that “the coins left the Mint illegally, that Switt was involved, that his relatives knew that the coins’ acquisition was illegal and continued to conceal them, and thus, that the coins should be forfeited.”
Roy Langbord is a New York entertainment lawyer. The Langbords were represented in the case by Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, according to the Associated Press and the Legal Intelligencer (sub. req.).
The family filed a civil action in 2006 seeking a writ of mandamus and asserting violations of CAFRA, the Administrative Procedure Act and the Federal Tort Claims Act, as well as the Fourth and Fifth amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
The Justice and Treasury departments, respectively, did not respond to a request for comment from the AP.
ABC News and CoinWeek also have stories.
Related coverage:
Courthouse News (2012): “Unearthed Gold Coins Belong to Uncle Sam”
New York Times (reg. req., 2011: “Family Battles U.S. Over 10 Coins Worth Millions”
