If you have this capability let’s say you want to print a check with a Nazi swastika symbol or “Church of Satan”, or some particularly graphic image from Robert Crumb, or Playboy, or some other symbol or graphic scene which many people might find incredibly offensive. Can a bank or business refuse your check simply because they find it visually or morally offensive?
For example could the government refuse to deposit the IRS tax check you send in if you had “KKK” emblazoned on it with a lynching scene in the background?
Interesting. So if I do some business with a church, and then pay them on a check that has satanic and pornographic imagery on it and they refuse to accept, can they still come after me for the money?
If the form of payment wasn’t negotiated, then your contract would revert to the default rule. The default rule in most places, I believe, is that a creditor can object to tender by personal check. In that case, they could sue you and the court could direct you to pay in whatever way the court sees fit.
However some states, like Oregon, provide by law that personal checks constitute legal tender. In that case (or in the case in which the contract provides that personal checks are acceptable), declining the check would be declining valid payment. If they do not accept, I believe you can go to court and have the debt discharged on the ground that valid payment was offered and refused.
The bank you do business with can also refuse to process checks that don’t conform to their specifications, including if they find the graphics you print offensive. They may tell you to change the checks or go elsewhere.
What if it’s a check you received from a customer? If someone came to me and said that my check wasn’t accepted by their bank (assuming it’s was soley due to a graphic and nothing else), I’d probably tell them tough luck, it’s not my problem. But since I’m not the type of person to put an offensive graphic on my check, I’m not likely to be in that situation. OTOH, if I, a business, brought one of my customers checks to the bank and they refused it due to the graphic a few things would happen. First of all, depending on the bank I’d first talk to the branch manager or president. I assume that would clear the problem up and I woulnd’t expect to have any more issues with it. If they still refused, or it happened a second time, I’d probably switch banks.
Luckily I use Telecheck now, as long as the MICR is in good shape I don’t care what the check looks like.
I can’t tell you about that situation. I’m talking about your bank. I did drop a bank for telling my something was unacceptable, but not because of a graphic I printed. Other banks were fine with the checks. They can decide to do business or not with you, just like any business can.
I would assume that obscenity and pornography statutes apply to images printed on homemade checks as much as to any other medium, so if you’re in the United States and you printed an image on your check that:
the average person, applying contemporary community standards, finds that it appeals to the prurient interest;
depicts, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law; and
taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value
then you could be found guilty of disseminating obscenity or whatever the name of the charge would be in your jurisdiction. If you mailed your check you could run afoul of laws prohibiting the sending of obscene materials through the mail. If you printed photos of children in sexual circumstances then child pornography laws could apply. And so on.