Preston State Bank v. Willis
Dallas Court of Appeals, No. 05-12-00688-CV (August 26, 2014)
Justices Bridges (Opinion), FitzGerald, and Lang-Miers
Preston State Bank was served with a grand jury subpoena for an account holder’s financial records. The Bank conceded it had a duty to comply, and did so, but argued that requiring it to comply without reimbursement of its costs of making the production—over $16,000 in this case—constituted a taking of property for public use without just compensation. Accordingly, the Bank contended, the subpoena and the statute governing production of financial records, Texas Finance Code § 59.006, are unconstitutional as applied. In an opinion that disposed of a number of other issues along the way, the Dallas Court of Appeals rejected the Bank’s plea. Following the lead of the United States Supreme Court on a related issue, the Court held that the Bank’s complying with a grand jury subpoena did not constitute a “taking” under the state or federal constitution, notwithstanding the undeniable burden it imposed. Instead, it is the performance of “a public obligation to provide evidence,” and, as the Supreme Court stated in Hurtado v. United States, “the Fifth Amendment does not require that the Government pay for the performance of a public duty it is already owed.”
