Writing A Cheque On The Side Of A Cow

Factual Questions
1

In his collection of stories Misleading Cases in the Common Law, the British humorist and reformer A.P. Herbert (1890-1971) pokes fun at the absurdities of court procedure.

In one of these tales of legal loopholes, Herbert has one of his characters pay a bill by writing a cheque on the side of a cow:

Judge: Was the cow crossed?.

Counsel: No m’lud, it was an open cow.

Herbert had studied law, and he published these stories in 1929.

It is apparently still legal in the UK to write a cheque on the side of a cow, as evidenced by this extract from the Bills of Exchange Act of 1882, a bill of exchange being defined as:

an unconditional order in writing addressed by one person to another, signed by the person giving it and requiring the person to whom it is addressed to pay on demand, or on a fixed date, a sum certain in money to, or to the order of, a specified person or to the bearer.

Since the cow is not a cheque but a bill of exchange, any refusal by a UK bank to clear the cow risks a breach of contract with the bank’s account holder.

Of course the cow is just an example of possible written material for a bill of exchange, and it might be preferable to employ a sheep for this purpose, a sheep having an integral baa-code, but my bank is unwilling to discuss with me the subject of which members of the Animal Kingdom it will accept for clearing, and which it will not.

This is because the bank would prefer me to use a cheque book like everybody else. Whilst I agree with the bank spokesperson when he suggests that a cheque book is more convenient for paying bills than is a herd of cows, this surely is not the point.

It is also irrelevant to point out that a cow does not fit as easily into an envelope as does a cheque, and that there is likely to be a surcharge imposed by the Royal Mail, especially for a First Class Cow, if the postal system is used to pay in the animal.

I could, of course, walk my Herd of Bills of Exchange to the bank instead, but I am trying to keep expenses to a minimum in my financial dealings just at the moment. I am also worried about the prospect of Cheque Droppings, as I would need a Very Large Pooper Scooper to accommodate the excremental output of my Herd.

The bank also mentioned the small difficulty they would have in putting the cow through an automated clearing system but, while sympathising with this view, I see this difficulty as their problem.

I suggested to the bank that an update of its software might be in order, and highlighted the obvious fact that the first bank to expand its systems in this way would be well positioned to increase their market share.

And so to the General Question. Is the use of an animal, or bird, or whatever, as a bill of exchange legal in countries other than the UK?

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

2

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_352b.html

3

Under the common law, a check could be written on anything. However, all of the 50 United States have adopted the Uniform Commerical Code. I don’t practice law and I’m not going to research it, but I’m virtually certain that the UCC states what is acceptable for a negotiable instrument. You can research it yourself.

4

Well, I didn’t see mouthbreather’s link until after I posted. However, the UCC may have been amended since 1986.

5

Article 3 of the UCC (which deals with negotiable instruments such as checks) has been amended since 1986, but a quick read shows no significant change on this point.

6

As Cecil alludes to, there have been a number of publicity stunts involving oversized checks, or checks written on unusual media. I’m willing to bet that somebody has had a payment literally “chiseled in stone”.

I seem to recall a stunt from a couple of decades ago that involved a check being inked on a bikini-clad young lady (yes, I DO want my cancelled checks, thank you).

However, as Cecil observes, unless it’s a prearranged stunt like that, the payee is going to reject it, and demand a check written in a more standard way.

When I was working for a very small startup that had a brief life before being acquired, the single “coup” we had as an independent company was the sale of a source license for a bit over a million, cash up front. I recall that they handed over a “ceremonial” check that was oversized - we all gathered around and looked at it after the guy who flew across the country to pick it up came back with it (after the usual jokes about why he didn’t cash it and decamp to Brazil and so on).