The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Lord Abbett's appeal of a lawsuit against the state of Alabama over municipal bond payments. The mutual fund firm had asked the SCOTUS to appeal a decision by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals denying the firm's claim that Alabama had deprived its fund of the income streams from a municipal bonds.

Lord Abbett's suit stems, naturally, from a dispute over electronic bingo machines. The Lord Abbett Municipal Income Fund held bonds issued by an Alabama county that were funded, in part, by revenue from these games of chance, games which later, to Lord Abbett's vexation, caught the attention of Alabama's Task Force on Illegal Gambling.

The task force threatened to raid the complex where the games were located and seize the machines. So the complex shut its doors to prevent the raid, causing Lord Abbett to lose its revenue stream from the bonds.

Lord Abbett said that its procedural due process had been violated and requested an injunction, pending a hearing to determine whether these games were illegal.

The district court did not agree that "state officials' threatened interference with the electronic bingo machines amounted to a deprivation of the Fund's property rights," a ruling that was upheld by the Appeals Court, and which the U.S. Supreme Court has now declined to revisit. 

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