31 USC § 3126 - Losses and relief from liability related to redeeming savings bonds and notes | Title 31 - Money and Finance | U.S. Code

USCPrelim is a preliminary release and may be subject to further revision before it is released again as a final version.

Current through Pub. L. 113-11. (See Public Laws for the current Congress.)

(a) Under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury, a loss resulting from a payment related to redeeming a savings bond or savings note shall be replaced out of the fund established by section 17303 (a) of title 40. A Federal reserve bank, a paying agent allowed to make payments in redeeming a bond or note, or an officer or employee of the Department of the Treasury is relieved from liability to the United States Government for the loss when the Secretary decides that the loss did not result from the fault or negligence of the bank, paying agent, officer, or employee. The Secretary shall relieve the bank, agent, officer, or employee from liability when the Secretary decides that written notice of liability or potential liability has not been given to the bank, agent, officer, or employee by the Government within 10 years from the date of the erroneous payment. However, the Secretary may not relieve a paying agent of an assumed unconditional liability to the Government.

(b) Section 17304 (c) of title 40 applies to a decision of the Secretary made under this section. A recovery or repayment of a loss for which replacement is made out of the fund shall be credited to the fund and is available for the purposes for which the fund was established.

prev | next

(a) Under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury, a loss resulting from a payment related to redeeming a savings bond or savings note shall be replaced out of the fund established by section 17303 (a) of title 40. A Federal reserve bank, a paying agent allowed to make payments in redeeming a bond or note, or an officer or employee of the Department of the Treasury is relieved from liability to the United States Government for the loss when the Secretary decides that the loss did not result from the fault or negligence of the bank, paying agent, officer, or employee. The Secretary shall relieve the bank, agent, officer, or employee from liability when the Secretary decides that written notice of liability or potential liability has not been given to the bank, agent, officer, or employee by the Government within 10 years from the date of the erroneous payment. However, the Secretary may not relieve a paying agent of an assumed unconditional liability to the Government.

(b) Section 17304 (c) of title 40 applies to a decision of the Secretary made under this section. A recovery or repayment of a loss for which replacement is made out of the fund shall be credited to the fund and is available for the purposes for which the fund was established.

Source

(Pub. L. 97–258, Sept. 13, 1982, 96 Stat. 946; Pub. L. 107–217, § 3(h)(4),Aug. 21, 2002, 116 Stat. 1299.)

Historical and Revision Notes
Revised Section	Source (U.S. Code)	Source (Statutes at Large)
3126(a)	31:757c(i)(1st–4th sentences).	Sept. 24, 1917, ch. 56, 40 Stat. 288, § 22(i)(1st–6th sentences); added Apr. 11, 1943, ch. 52, § 3, 57 Stat. 63; restated Apr. 3, 1945, ch. 51, § 3, 59 Stat. 47; Sept. 22, 1959, Pub. L. 86–346, § 103, 31 Stat. 622; Oct. 17, 1968, Pub. L. 90–595, § 2, 82 Stat. 1155.
3126(b)	31:757c(i)(5th, 6th sentences).

In subsection (a), the words “qualified” and “authorized or” are omitted as surplus. The words “officer or employee of the Department of the Treasury” are substituted for “Treasury of the United States” and “Treasurer” because of the source provisions restated in section 321 of the revised title and for consistency with other titles of the United States Code. The text of 31:757c(i)(3d sentence) is omitted as surplus because of 39:410. The words “under regulations prescribed by him” are omitted as unnecessary.

Amendments

2002—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 107–217, § 3(h)(4)(A), substituted “section 17303 (a) of title 40” for “section 2 of the Government Losses in Shipment Act (40 U.S.C. 722)”.

Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 107–217, § 3(h)(4)(B), substituted “Section 17304 (c) of title 40” for “Section 3 of the Government Losses in Shipment Act (40 U.S.C. 723) (related to finality of decisions of the Secretary)”.

The table below lists the classification updates, since Jan. 3, 2012, for this section. Updates to a broader range of sections may be found at the update page for containing chapter, title, etc.

The most recent Classification Table update that we have noticed was Monday, June 17, 2013

An empty table indicates that we see no relevant changes listed in the classification tables. If you suspect that our system may be missing something, please double-check with the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

How To Use

Multiple entries for a section are listed most recent first, within the section.

The Session Year indicates which session of Congress was responsible for the changes classified. The Congress number forms the first part of the Public Law number; each Congress has two sessions.

Abbreviations used in the Description of Change column:

An empty field implies a standard amendment.
"new" means a new section or new note, or all new text of an existing section or note.
"nt" means note.
"nt [tbl]" means note [table].
"prec" means preceding.
"fr" means a transfer from another section.
"to" means a transfer to another section.
"omitted" means the section is omitted.
"repealed" means the section is repealed.
"nt ed change" and "ed change" - See the Editorial Classification Change Table [pdf].

The Public Law field is linked to the development of the law in the Thomas system at the Library of Congress.

The Statutes at Large field is linked to the text of the law, in the context of its volume of the Statutes at Large, at the Government Printing Office. Please note that it takes a while for these pages to get posted, so for very recent legislation, you need to look at the "enrolled" version at the Thomas site.

The Statutes at Large references have been rendered in the format used as page numbers in the Public Law web pages to which we link, to facilitate copy-paste into browser "find on this (web) page" tools. We are still working on a more direct link facility.

For serious comparison work, we suggest copying all or a portion of the Public Law text into your favorite text editor, for convenient content traversal and window control.

Sections with change type "new" are a special case, still under development. All are now listed, at the title level only.

You will find that occassionally a specific update you notice in a Public Law listed in a classification table will already have made it into the Code. We assume this is an artifact of the LRC edit process. The LII does not edit the LRC content.

top

General Reference

Refer to the LRC (Law Revision Council) for explanations about the US Code from the folks who put it all together.

You can look for information about what it is and is not, which titles are positive law, the schedule of Supplements, etc. Under download you can find the source data we use here (GPO locator files), as well as, PDF files that look just like the paper books (these may be rather large).

Refer to the Thomas site for changes that have not yet made it into the classification tables.

31 USC	Description of Change	Session Year	Public Law	Statutes at Large

This is a list of parts within the Code of Federal Regulations for which this US Code section provides rulemaking authority.

This list is taken from the Parallel Table of Authorities and Rules provided by GPO [Government Printing Office].

It is not guaranteed to be accurate or up-to-date, though we do refresh the database weekly. More limitations on accuracy are described at the GPO site.

31 CFR - Title 31—Money and Finance: Treasury

31 CFR Part 306 - GENERAL REGULATIONS GOVERNING U.S. SECURITIES

31 CFR Part 321 - PAYMENTS BY BANKS AND OTHER FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS OF UNITED STATES SAVINGS BONDS AND UNITED STATES SAVINGS NOTES (FREEDOM SHARES)

31 CFR Part 341 - REGULATIONS GOVERNING UNITED STATES RETIREMENT PLAN BONDS

31 CFR Part 346 - REGULATIONS GOVERNING UNITED STATES INDIVIDUAL RETIREMENT BONDS

31 CFR Part 357 - REGULATIONS GOVERNING BOOK-ENTRY TREASURY BONDS, NOTES AND BILLS HELD IN TREASURY/RESERVE AUTOMATED DEBT ENTRY SYSTEM (TRADES) AND LEGACY TREASURY DIRECT

31 CFR Part 370 - ELECTRONIC TRANSACTIONS AND FUNDS TRANSFERS RELATING TO UNITED STATES SECURITIES

31 USC § 3126 - Losses and relief from liability related to redeeming savings bonds and notes

U.S. Code Toolbox

Law about... Articles from Wex

Get Involved

Find a Lawyer