Community Property—Savings Bonds—Community Property—Supremacy Clause

This note concerns the conflict between federal and state law in a difficult though narrow area which is representative of broader problems in contemporary federalism. Specifically, the subject is the clash between the survivorship provisions of United States savings bonds and state community property laws, as evinced in two recent cases, Free v. Bland and Yiatchos v. Yiatchos. These cases will be examined while seeking an answer to two questions: "How were the cases actually decided?" and "How should they have been decided?"'