<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 05/12/2014 19:40, Charles Lindsey
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:op.xqet9fg86hl8nm@clerew.man.ac.uk"
type="cite">On Thu, 04 Dec 2014 15:58:08 -0000, Nicholas Bohm
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:nbohm@ernest.net"><nbohm@ernest.net></a> wrote:
<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Most interesting - thank you.
<br>
<br>
As I understand it, legal tender is what a creditor cannot
refuse to
<br>
accept without risking being met with the defence of tender.
The courts
<br>
(in the examples given, anyway) are not creditors. They are
like any
<br>
other person offering a service, who can lay down, on a
<br>
take-it-or-leave-it basis, what they want in exchange. That
doesn't
<br>
undermine or alter the concept of legal tender, which never
purported to
<br>
compel people to accept one form of payment rather than another
unless
<br>
they were already creditors.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
I don't follow that. If the court has ordered that you make a
payment to it, then you "owe" that much money to the court (OK,
the "debt" may not technically be a consideration for some
contract, but it is still a Debt).
<br>
<br>
So if you owe money to the Court, then the Court is your
"creditor". For example, if you cannot afford the sum in question,
you can declare bankruptcy, and then presumably some rule will
determine whereabouts in the packing order the Court comes.
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
In some cases, the court has ordered you to pay money, but usually
to some other person, not to the court. In the case of a payment
into court aimed at providing you with the basis for a defence (e.g.
tender), the court hasn't <i>ordered </i>you to make the payment,
it has rules which <i>allow</i> you to make it. So in that case
the court isn't a creditor, directly or by analogy, it is simply
laying down the terms on which you can take advantage of its rules -
and those terms are, pay by cheque unless you are a litigant in
person without a current account.<br>
<br>
Nick<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<style type="text/css">
A:link
{ text-decoration: none; color:#0000bb; }
A:visited
{ text-decoration: none; color:#990099; }
A:active
{ text-decoration: none; color:#bb0000; }
A:hover
{ text-decoration: underline; color:#bb0000; }
</style><span style="font-family: monospace;"><a
href="http://www.ernest.net/contact/index.htm">Contact
and PGP key here</a></span><br>
</div>
</body>
</html>