The funds came out of the account and you have constructive receipt of the funds (by having a check in your had that can be cashed), so I would think that it would have to be treated as a distribution. Whether or not the HSA can do anything to pretend that the distribution never happened, say, by putting a stop-payment on the check, is between you (actually your wife since it's her HSA) and the HSA custodian. If that doesn't happen, there was a distribution and returning it to an HSA owned by your wife would have to be done as a 60-day rollover.
In your other thread you mentioned that the HSA custodian somehow calculated an amount of excess, but I am still curious as to how they came up with the number that they did. Did they, based on their mistaken belief that no contributions were permitted to be deposited during October, November and December, simply total the amount deposited during those three months?
