Review the case of Any Kind Checks Cashed, Inc. v. Talcott in Chapter 30 of the text. Write a short paper on whether or not you agree with the Court’s decision. Is it fair? In your opinion, is Any Kind a HDC?

Based on this case, I don’t believe that I would agree with the ending result. I believe that based on this case the judge put Any Kind as a holder in due course. A holder in due course is a “special party to an instrument with special rights beyond those of the ordinary holder” (Twomey&Jennings, 2011). What circumstances would grant Any Kind Checks to have special rights beyond cashing a check from John G Talcott? I understand that John Talcott established check cashing privileges by signing a store card, consisting of his social security number and other information, but in the end they are just supposed to cash the check and not gain any other privileges or information. When the $10,000 check came up for cashing, did the Any Kind owner and authority act in good faith? Good faith is “absence of knowledge of any facts in or problems; (pure heart and empty head)” (Twomey&Jennings, 2011). They didn’t have the proper verification or authorization to allow a check for $10,000 to be cashed; being that the limit of $2,000 needed authorization from a manager. When the manager tried to contact Talcott, she could not reach him, so based on her own judgment and decision making skills she decided to take matters into her own hands, and in the end made a bad decision because the check was fraudulent or been placed under stop payment status. Being that Any Kind is a check cashing company, they cannot see when a banking customer places stop payments because they don’t have that authority or any way of finding that out, until it ends up coming back on them. Even though Talcott set up check cashing privileges with them, it was the company’s bad mistake but in the end it is Talcott’s responsibility and he is liable for any charges or problems that occur. When the second check for $5,700 came through, being the correct check that should have been written all along, I believe that Any Kind acted in good faith based off the ending results. Talcott’s advisor should have had better figures computed, because all of this could have been avoided when making the check payable to Guarino. If possible I would put the blame on Rivera, Talcott’s advisor, because it all started with his figures in the first place, but apparently that cannot happen. I believe it would be fair that even though they cashed the check Talcott wrote and signed, that Talcott would still be responsible for the cashed check, in which he should take matters into his own hands dealing with Rivera and Guarino. Being that Any Kind cashed the check based on the gut feeling of the authorized manager, it was Talcott’s check that he wrote and decided to hand off, even though he didn’t know the amount was completely wrong. In the end it seems like the only common sense thing that occurred was left in the responsible hands of Talcott. If your financial advisor cannot get the correct figures for your finances, then it’s either time to get a new advisor or start controlling things on your own. I don’t believe Any Kind is a holder in due course, because even though they cashed the check for $10,000 they did follow rules as far as getting managements approval along with the $5,700 check. Now if Talcott had enough time to contact Any Kind about stopping the check cashing process of that instrument, and the company did it anyway then I would say they are a holder in due course. Any Kind had permission to cash Mr. Talcott’s checks due do his store card he filled out with personal information and signature. Should he have perhaps set up a limit or prefilled amounts with them to be allowed to cash? In the end, would that have helped if the authorization manager kept making gut-felling decisions? Overall, I think that it’s still left up to Talcott being his responsibility, because he is the writer of the check and he made it payable regardless of whether or not the amount was correct or incorrect. I think the holder in due course status resides with Talcott.

Works Cited
Twomey&Jennings. (2011). Business Law: Principles for Today's Commercial Environment. Mason, OH: Southwestern Cengage.