The Commonwealth Court has sent Pennsylvania Treasurer Joseph Torsella back to the drawing board in his attempt to obtain legal title to hundreds of millions of dollars in unclaimed U.S. savings bonds in hopes of reuniting them with their owners.

A three-judge panel of the court unanimously ruled that it was constrained to reject Torsella’s application for leave to effect service by publication of his amended complaint, which sought to take control of approximately $840 million in matured, unredeemed and unclaimed bonds as the first step in a process to track down the bonds’ owners or their heirs.