Across the United States, cash is quietly disappearing from places that once took it without question. Government agencies and private businesses now route even the smallest transactions through digital networks that record who paid, when, and where.
This has created a growing dependence on card processors and mobile payment companies that profit from every exchange and hold the power to deny or suspend access.
That dependence has now reached federal land. The National Park Service has begun refusing cash at dozens of parks and historic sites, forcing visitors to use electronic payment systems to enter public property.
A lawsuit challenging that policy argues that by excluding physical currency, the agency is violating federal law and pushing citizens into a digital system that tracks their movements and spending.
Attorney Ray Flores has filed an appeal with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, seeking to overturn the dismissal of a lawsuit against the National Park Service (NPS) for refusing to accept cash at dozens of federal sites.
We obtained a copy of the filing for you here.
The case, backed by Children’s Health Defense, centers on whether a federal agency can legally decline the very currency the government itself issues.
At issue is the NPS policy that bars visitors from paying park entrance fees with cash. The appeal argues that the agency has violated both the Administrative Procedure Act and the Legal Tender Statute, which defines US coins and bills as “legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.”
Flores wrote that the district court’s earlier decision effectively “demonetized the U.S. Dollar on federal property without justification.”
His brief asks the appeals court to declare the policy unlawful or send the case back for trial.
“NPS’s no-cash policy begs a commonsense question – does the U.S. Government have the right to refuse to accept the currency it demands we use? The commonsense answer is, obviously not.”
The case began when New York artist Toby Stover visited the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site in Hyde Park. The filing recounts:
“A man in an NPS uniform welcomed her. He asked her if she would like to take the 3:30 tour. She replied that she would. He asked for $10, which she attempted to hand to him. He affirmed ‘we don’t take cash’ and would not permit her to enter.”
Stover later learned that nearly thirty other national parks and historic sites had adopted the same cashless rule. “Hyde Park’s entrance fee,” the brief notes, “is still only payable by ‘Credit/Debit only’ according to its website.”
Flores argues that this denial was not symbolic or technical. “Her U.S. currency is utterly worthless at Hyde Park to this day,” he wrote, adding that “Ms. Stover’s harm not only happened, but occurs any time she sets foot on any one of NPS’s no-cash venues.”
The brief invokes the Legal Tender Statute, which states that “United States coins and currency…are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.” Flores contends that no law grants the NPS power to create “a surrogate legal tender (i.e., electronic payments).” He wrote, “This Court must not permit any government agency or District Court to designate a replacement for U.S. currency.”
The appeal calls the district court’s reasoning circular. “The District Court avoided deciding the substantive issues of the illegality of the NPS’s no-cash policy by blaming the victim,” the filing says.
“The NPS employee’s turning her away resulted in concrete injury and actual and continuing harm as long as Hyde Park’s no-cash policy remains in place.”
Flores describes the implications in stark terms:
“The minute she walked onto federal property owned for the public good and was told she needed to use a private payment, her U.S. currency became worthless. Money is a unit of account, medium of exchange, and a store of value. The moment she walked on the property, it lost all its value.”
The appeal frames the case as a test of governmental boundaries. “No U.S. law allows the NPS to exclusively define legal tender as electronic payment,” it states.
“The District Court pretended or presumed such a law existed when it ruled that Ms. Stover brought the harm upon herself when she tendered U.S. currency at Hyde Park.”
Flores warns that allowing such policies to stand would erode public trust in the dollar itself. “The U.S. Government’s demonetization and devaluation of its U.S. Dollar is a dangerous gamble,” he wrote.
In his introduction, Flores framed the issue in terms of national identity and law:
“Will history remember Toby Stover vs. U.S. National Park Service as the case that helped rescue the dollar’s dignity, or as the beginning of its quiet demise? In a democracy built on laws and liberty, the answer matters.”
Privacy at the Core
The case extends beyond monetary policy. Stover maintains that cash is a safeguard for personal privacy and accessibility. She says that denying cash limits public participation and exposes all transactions to tracking and financial data collection. For those without cards or bank accounts, cashless entry creates a barrier to public space itself.
As federal agencies move toward digital-only systems, the outcome of this appeal could define whether Americans retain the practical right to use physical money in government-run settings.
Flores’s filing concludes with a call for judicial correction:
“The NPS replaces U.S. currency with surrogate electronic payment. The District Court’s assumption that electronic payment is the new U.S. currency is reversible error.”
If the appellate court agrees, it would restore the dollar’s role on federal land and affirm that public institutions must continue to accept cash, a tangible instrument of both payment and privacy.
