If they put that in your insurance contract, sure they can.
Well yes, but the idea seems to be I could offer to pay in fifties and the guy at the window could insist on twenties. Don’t got it? We cancel your policy. Do got the twenties? Now we want tens.
They’re still an emotive choice of words whether the cop or the journalist used them.
It is a dick thing to do, but isn’t that the point? Inconveniencing someone who you beiieve has ripped you off? Handing the money over in neatly rolled pennies wouldn’t achieve that aim.
And it’s not exactly a huge inconvenience to pick pennies up off the counter and floor. It’s the sort of thing where you’d usually rant about it and bar the man from coming again, but calling the cops?
Does not freedom mean the freedom to be odd and even unpleasant? I do not need freedom and legal protection behave as everyone wished me to behave.
I don’t think “freedom” means the freedom to disrupt other people’s lives for no good reason.
The limit of your freedom is when your shower of pennies hits another person’s desk.
More seriously, whether this penny-tantrum is eventually adjudged to constitute disorderly conduct remains to be seen.
But you can’t conceive of more obvious situations in which your “freedom to be odd and even unpleasant” intrudes on someone else’s right to go about his or her business without undue interference from your oddity and unpleasantness?
It seems quite obvious the guy stepped over the line. But it seems to me that he could have insisted on paying his bill as he saw fit. Lacking any policy, rule, law or contract, the agent of the organization due the money would be wrong in refusing payment.
I would think the guy could have made this work, but his temper got the better of him.
Who cares if it’s “emotive?” It appeares to be an accurate description of what happened. In fact it sounds like West took a container of 2,500 pennies, dumped it on the counter, and told the employees to count it.
Yes. He was angry and decided to be a dick. It got him arrested. It happens all the time. I’m not sure what your disagreement is here. If he’d found a less moronic way to express his anger, he wouldn’t have gotten hit with a citation. He also would not have inconvenienced a bunch of people who didn’t do anything to him. His quibble was with the billing department or his insurance, not with the people who had to waste part of their work day picking up his pennies.
Somewhere between several hundred and 2,500? Yes, that’s a big freaking inconvenience. West acted like a jerk, so a bunch of people had to stop working and clean up his mess (and then count the pennies). I remember back in my retail days - my last day, as a matter of fact - I had a customer try to pay for something with about $30 in coins. I told him I wouldn’t accept all of it but I decided to be nice and accept maybe $20. The two of us then spent about 20 minutes trying to total up the change. He did have a lot of pennies but there were also several dollars in quarters and dimes and nickels. If you don’t know how much money is in front of you and it’s not organized, counting a huge amount of change is pretty time consuming.
Yeah, counting $7.50 in pennies (0:50) would take a significant chunk of time.
It’s not accurate - ‘dumping’ and ‘demanded’ are both putting a value judgment on the actions. And demanded is irrelevant anyway - the staff would have had to count the money any way he delivered the pennies.
If the staff involved had nothing to do with the alleged false billing, then the man is a total dick, but if they did, then he’s just getting his revenge the only way he can. Yes, it’s time-consuming - that’s the point. But it’s hardly criminal.
‘Being a dick’ doesn’t usually lead to being arrested. God, half the population would have a criminal record if that were the case.
Having read hundreds of misdemeanor police reports, I would say that a significant majority of disorderly conduct charges amount to “criminal dickishness.”
But being a dick doesn’t get you arrested anything like as often as ‘it happens all the time.’ (I know that didn’t mean literally ‘every single time,’ but it definitely means it’s common).
In a county with a population of 75,000, if it happened 50 times a week on average, would you consider it uncommon?
What is your basis for saying the words are not accurate? You’re wrong about the value judgments in any case. Both words are intended to describe the incident, and the fact that they make West look like an asshole does not mean they are inaccurate. “Dumping” is a physical action. It is distinct from giving, dropping, and throwing, for example. “Demand” is intended to describe his comments to the employees after that. It’s different from asked and told, for example.
Not if he’d delivered them in rolls. Coin rolls have labels that tell you how much change is in them.
Tough shit on him, then. His dispute is probably with the billing department or his insurance, not the people who answer the phones and hand out forms at the clinic.
The local police feel differently.
Not all instances of being a dick are criminal, but some are.
I don’t really know how to argue about the emotive language - if you don’t think those words are emotive, I can’t see you being persuaded to change your mind, especially when you give a definition of ‘demand’ that sounds emotive.
Like I said, if the dispute is not with the staff who take the money in, then he’s just a dick, but you’re assuming that’s definitely the case.
@Ascenray - that’s only relevant if those arrests comprise all ‘dickish behaviour’ events. The argument is not that nobody ever gets arrested for disorderly conduct, but that most dickish behaviour does not actually lead to arrest. TBH, I’m surprised that’s a contentious statement.
TBF, I am currently fighting with multiple organisations over money owed to me, items mis-sold (ie. broken) or not delivered, and a debt I dispute, so I’m probably more sympathetic to this guy than some of you. I wouldn’t have thought I was the only one here who’d ever had protracted dealings with a company acting like complete dicks and thought this man’s response was understandable.
Are you sure about that? Marley said:
I don’t take that to mean that “most dickish behaviour … lead to arrest.” I take it to mean that during som relatively short period of time (say, a week), someone somewhere is being arrested for dickish behaviour.
I don’t your claim about the words being “emotive” is even relevant. Given the facts we’ve heard, please describe the act in language you see as neutral.
Right, that interpretation would be ridiculous. I was saying arrests for dickish behavior are commonplace.
And I said that most dickish behaviour doesn’t lead to an arrest - ie. being arrested isn’t an inevitable or even common outcome to acting like a dick.
I’d have to actually have seen the act to do that, wouldn’t I? But whatever - while some words are indisputable emotive, others are more subjective, so I don’t think there’s much point us debating it.
I don’t think anyone has said it’s inevitable. As for whether it’s “common,” you seem to be ignoring my and Marley’s definition of “common.” You can have your definition if you want, but I don’t think you’ve really made a point with it.
This is a subjective statement, isn’t it? 
In any case I agree this is a waste of time. Here is a more detailed description (from a reporter who spoke to West himself) about what he did:
You are welcome to argue this doesn’t really count as dumping, but it’s pretty much what I had in mind earlier:
I know the OP is American, but for completeness I’ll point out that there **is **a limit in Canada and quite a few other countries for how many coins constitute legal tender.