@Anonymous wrote:
@Walt_K wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:Bad analysis.
You write the check, you assume the obligation. Whatever arrangement OP had with his landlord is largely irrelevant to the issue he has with the holder of the bad check.
In your scenario of the utility bill, not only can the utility company have you criminally prosecuted for writing a bad check, they also have civil recourse against you.
You may be correct that writing a check somehow operates as an automatic assumption of the underlying liability at law. I find that odd, but it's been quite a few years since I took contracts, and I don't know the laws around checks. But for criminal prosecution, don't you have to be presenting the check for goods or services received? Offering to pay someone else's obligation doesn't seem like it could support a criminal charge. Again, just my off the cuff reaction, you may be correct.
Criminal law: Present consideration: Whether or not the writer of the check ultimately received the goods or services is irrelevant. You go to the store with your spouse and you pay with a check that ultimately gets returned NSF. You are the purchaser and because you ultimately gave the goods to someone else does not bar criminal prosecution.
Contract law: All the elements of a valid contract are present:
1. Meeting of the Minds
2. Offer & Acceptance
3. Mutual Consideration
4. Performance or Delivery
5. Good Faith
6. No Violation of Public Policy
You tender an unconditional promise to pay for value received. In the scenario presented, that is exactly what happened. A check was tendered in payment of goods. These goods were then given to another in return for rent.
Even if you missed Penal Law & also Contract Law, logic would also come into play.
On the criminal law point, I didn't interpret the OPs recitation of the facts that way. I thought he was paying a debt for goods already received by his landlord. I was assuming that the landlord had already received the animal feed on credit. In that scenario, it seems like an offer to pay an antecedent debt and not an exchange for present consideration.
I'll concede the civil point. It seems analogous to a gift to me, which is why I initially didn't think they could enforce the obligation to pay the underlying liability. I don't think there's anything illogical in that. I agree with you that if we walk into a store and I write a check for something which they hand to you, it's illogical to assume I can wash my hands of it. But if it's something you purchased on credit last week, and for no reason at all, I offer to pay it and my check bounces, it seems perfectly logical that I could pay whatever transaction fees were associated with the bounced check and nothing more. Perhaps that's not the way it works, but I don't see any inherent contradiction.
Starting Score: ~500 (12/01/2008)
@alleycat1975 wrote:Well that is generally what happend. She would order feed, he would deliver it and leave a bill and she would pay it either next round or send it to him. Its been so long at this point i don't know how this particular situation worked. I do know that in the Memo section it was written " For xxx Farm" and it wasn't in my hand writing at that so she must have filled that part in. That makes me believe that I must have handed the check to her rather to him directly.
If looked at criminally, with this amount, this would be a misdemeanor in Ohio. So now the mighty question is, is this a contract or not LOL.. Seriously, I would pay the amount were it not for the fact that it was supposed to be a trailer payment and obviously I don't have that trailer. If it were justifyably MY feed that fed MY horses, I would pay it.
I may have presented a distinction without a difference. O6 seems more knowledgeable in this area, so I will defer.