'It is perfectly legal for the rancher to write a check on ANYTHING': Rancher loses court battle, pays damages in the most petty way possible

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Sep 13, 2024 11:00 AM EDT

You know how some people will pay off big fines with massive bags of pennies? This is in a similar vein… except 10x crazier. 

When people get involved in court battles, it can quickly become petty and contentious. The two parties are in court because they're trying to litigate an issue, and it's going to cost one of them a lot of money in the end. What the court rules is what you have to do, whether you like it or not, and even if you appeal the verdict, you may still have to pay that big fine anyway. That's why when people are ordered to pay thousands to someone they despise, they get creative with it. Some will turn thousands of dollars into pennies. They'll then use wheelbarrows to drop it at that person's home or at the bank. It's all about the principle of the matter. 

This rancher had an absolutely crazy way to pay off a check (though some people believed this person was telling tall tales… you'll just have to decide for yourself after reading the story down below). 

Up next, this retail management team decided that customers should never have to wait more than 15 seconds to be helped by a cashier, but they didn't realize the actual impact it was going to have on their employees. 

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  • 01
    Cheezburger Image 10402713088
    via Patrick Baum on Unsplash
  • 02
    A very expensive check M This malicious compliance is not my own. It was related to me by my mother many decades ago, but it is also not hers. She just got to play her part in the story. But since she died decades before Reddit existed for her to share it with all you wonderful people, I'll pass it on for her.
    via u/Internal-Car8922
  • 03
    This is a case of an intended malicious compliance being countered by an even more malicious compliance. My mother is at this time a manager in the central processing office of a now defunct major regional bank easily the largest bank in our region back in the day.
    via u/Internal-Car8922
  • 04
    She receives a rather odd check for processing, and refuses to run it until she has the full story on what is happening. So here's what she learns: A rancher has been in a land dispute with one of his neighbors, and it has not gone amicably. We are not privy to the exact nature of the issue, but it seems to have something to do with water rights. Either way, it ends up in court. And after a
    via u/Internal-Car8922
  • 05
    long, hard fought battle of legal wills, the rancher loses and is ordered to pay a certain amount of damages to his neighbor by a certain date. Well, that is not a happy thing for the rancher. So he decides that while he must pay, there is absolutely nothing in the court order that says he has to make it easy on his adversary. Malicious compliance engaged: He shaves a spot on the rump of one of his
    via u/Internal-Car8922
  • 06
    cows, and carefully writes out a check for the full amount of the court ordered damages on the skin of the bovine. He then has one of his trucks deliver the cow to his neighbor to settle the account. A live chewing, pooping cow! After checking with the bank, the neighbor concludes that it is perfectly legal for the rancher to write a check on anything and the rancher makes it perfectly clear
    via u/Internal-Car8922
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    that this is the only way he intends to settle the debt. But just like folks who decide to settle an annoying bill with thousands of coins sometimes find themselves victims of their own malicious intent, the neighbor's malicious compliance trumps the rancher's.
    via u/Internal-Car8922
  • 08
    The neighbor loads the cow onto one of his own trucks, and takes it to the rancher's bank - the bank of issuance - and cashes it against a cashier's check made out to him for the same amount. This he then deposits at his own bank with no difficulty or challenge.
    via u/Internal-Car8922
  • 09
    Meanwhile, the rancher's bank has to order a truck and driver to deliver the cow-check to it's central processing office, several hours drive away. This is where my mother comes into the story. She has to cancel the check and process it. (She uses a paper substitute to run through the computer system for it, just like they do for any checks that come in that are too badly wrinkled or damaged to run safely through the system.)
    via u/Internal-Car8922
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    After the cow-check has been properly processed, and the money deducted from the rancher's account, she then opts to not store the check with his other cancelled checks to return with his monthly statement, but instead orders it returned immediately to the rancher.
    via u/Internal-Car8922
  • 11
    And then, after the dust settles, the real fall-out of the neighbor's malicious compliance is felt: Since the cow-check involves a great deal of special handling at the bank's expense, the bank assesses appropriate fees that more than cover the expenses in processing it. If the neighbor cashes it at his own bank, he gets to pay those fees. But since he cashes it at the rancher's bank, the rancher now gets to pay what amounts to an additional 25% fee
    via u/Internal-Car8922
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    on top of the court ordered settlement. The only cost to the neighbor was ten miles of gas for the round trip to the bank -- a -- trip he routinely makes anyway and the time spent getting the bank to verify that the cow-check is a legitimate instrument that can be cashed. When telling me this story, my mother tells me it is the most expensive check she ever processed.
    via u/Internal-Car8922
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    Razzerno It seems there was a lot of beef between the two!
    via u/Razzerno
  • 14
    SCVannevar "To err is human; to forgive, bovine." --the rancher's mom, probably
    via u/SCVannevar
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    anderoogigwhore Does this also mean that as well as the cheque amount, the rancher has given his neighbour a cow? If neighbour is another rancher/farmer then he has been giften an extra bovine for his livestock too.
    via u/anderoogigwhore
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    dasunst3r That was such a moo-ving story, you have me in tears!
    via u/dasunst3r
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    FatBloke4 There was a similar story to this in the UK many years ago but I can't find a link to the news story. The UK tax authorities sent someone a tax bill, which he considered unreasonable and unfair. He decided to pay by delivering a personal cheque, written on a large basking shark. At the time is was delivered, the shark had been dead a
    via u/FatBloke4
  • 18
    few days and was getting a bit smelly. If the tax office refused his payment by any legal means, his tax debt would be annulled. While the security staff were not keen to take delivery of his cheque, the tax office decided to accept the payment. I'm not sure how they processed the cheque.
    via u/FatBloke4
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    In the aftermath of this, the government modified the law as regards means of payment for tax bills and the like and it was no longer possible to pay tax bills with cheques written on funny stuff.
    via u/FatBloke4
  • 20
    JayLFRodger Holy cow!
    via u/JayLFRodger
  • 21
    NotARobot DefAC... So you're saying that this was literally a cash cow?
    via u/NotARobot DefACyborg

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rancher cow farmer malicious compliance malicious-compliance-reddit legal bills ranch farm malicious compliance reddit money cows
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