A court ruling on October 20, 2026 in a class action over cash seizures at the Indianapolis FedEx hub has handed property owners a partial win — and left the core practice in place, according to the Institute for Justice (IJ), the public-interest law firm representing the plaintiffs.

The case began with Henry and Minh Cheng, California jewelry sellers who have run a wholesale business for about 30 years. In April 2024 a Virginia retailer paid them in cash for a bulk jewelry sale and shipped the money by FedEx; the parcel — $42,825, according to earlier court reporting by The Indiana Lawyer — was routed through the Indianapolis FedEx hub, the second-largest FedEx hub in the United States. There, an Indianapolis police officer pulled the parcel aside, a K-9 alerted to it, police obtained a warrant and opened it, and found cash and no contraband, IJ said. The Marion County Prosecutor then filed a civil-forfeiture action to keep the money, alleging only that it was proceeds of "a violation of a criminal statute" — without saying which statute. Prosecutors later agreed to return the Chengs' money, Reason reported in December 2024, but the class action over the wider practice continued.

In this week's decision, the court held that prosecutors provide insufficient notice to property owners when the state seeks to forfeit their cash, IJ said. "The court agreed that people should not lose their money to the government when the government does not identify a connection to a specific crime," said IJ attorney Marie Miller. At the same time, the court found nothing unlawful in the practice of forfeiting parcels headed through the hub from one non-Indiana state to another that have no tie to any Indiana crime, and held that the practices otherwise comply with Indiana's civil-forfeiture statute and the Constitution. IJ said it will appeal that part of the decision, with Miller arguing the court "got it wrong that Indiana can forfeit money from parcels having no connection to any Indiana crime at all."

The scale claimed in the litigation is large: IJ says that since 2022 Indiana has sued to forfeit more than $2.5 million from in-transit FedEx parcels and has already kept approximately $1 million of it — figures Reason's earlier reporting also put at more than $2.5 million sought from at least 130 parcels. Civil forfeiture allows the government to keep property it alleges is linked to crime without first convicting the owner. For anyone who ships cash or valuables through a major hub — including immigrant-owned small businesses that move money across states — the ruling means Indiana may still seize and sue over a parcel that simply passes through, but it must now tell the owner what specific crime the money is alleged to be connected to. (Sources: Institute for Justice press release, October 20, 2026, reporting the court's decision in the Cheng class action; The Indiana Lawyer, court reporting on the $42,825 seizure and the order returning the Chengs' money; Reason, December 3, 2024, reporting the return of the money and the $2.5 million / 130-parcel figures in the class action.)