In this Wednesday, July 31, 2013 photo, workers deliver bags of quarters to a law office in Marion, Ill.
Posted on 08/02/2013 7:42:01 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
ST. LOUIS (AP) — An Illinois businessman outraged by a court order that he return more than $500,000 in insurance money related to a 2001 wreck that killed his teenage son wanted to pay the money back in pennies in protest, only to recognize that was unfeasible.
So, Roger Herrin settled on quarters — four tons of them.
Packed in 150 transparent sacks each weighing about 50 pounds, the $150,000 in coins were nearly one-third of the money an appellate court required Herrin to pay back to resolve years-long legal feuding among the crash's survivors over how $800,000 in insurance proceeds were apportioned.
Obtained from the Federal Reserve in St. Louis, the backbreaking load of change was brought in Wednesday by an armored vehicle and delivered on a flatbed truck to two law firms that represented other victims of the wreck.
"There was no satisfaction from doing that," Herrin, who also serves on the Southern Illinois University system's governing board, told The Associated Press on Thursday. "The loss of a child is the loss of a child, and all the money doesn't replace that.
"I just wanted to draw attention to what went on here," the 76-year-old man added before mustering a laugh. "I really wanted to do it in pennies."
It ended the legal wrangling that's happened since Herrin's 15-year-old son, Michael, was killed in June 2001. He was a passenger in a Jeep Cherokee that was broadsided by a truck that blew through a stop sign near Raleigh in southern Illinois' Saline County. Three other occupants of the Jeep were injured.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
I once sent the IRS my tax payment in pennies. It was only $1, so two rolls were do-able.
I understand his rage and anger, but his device doesn’t come across and protest. It comes across as stupidity and excess, and it demeans his son, who should be remembered with respect and love.
Then WHY did you do it. I ain't all that smart, but I do know bitter vindictiveness is not going to help.
A possible risk is that the recipient might say there was only $ 140,000 in quarters actually delivered.
I don’t see it that way at all. He has a right to be pissed off and he’s expressing it in a legal and peaceful way.
I’ll bet his son would be proud of the old man.
He’s upset that other, living, victims of the collision got a larger share of the payout than he did.
Okay.
he’s a living victim and his loss was significant. They came out with their lives while he came out with grief. I don’t support his bitterness but I do get his anger.
Frankly the whole thing is about greed on all parts... at least that’s how the article makes it sound.
True. I guess I'm less sympathetic than I might be because I've never found that money fixes grief.
After winning a major lawsuit I brought against my greedy partner, I wouldn’t accept his check or that of his sleazy law-firm, I wanted the money paid in cash.. A Brinks Truck arrived at my home and it took 2 guards with 2 flatbeds to stack the boxes in my foyer..
His lawyer had to be present for me to sign the paperwork completing the transaction.. I handed him my dog, an old poodle, that accompanied me almost everywhere I went, in order to signed the several pages of documents..
She promptly peed on his expensive suit, causing him to threaten to throw her down, until he saw me smiling as I reached for my camera that I had at the ready to photograph the money, and he thought against it.. Ha!
remind me not to tick you off..
Your posting betrays your own tag line!
I suggest you tie a string around your pinky, as I reminder, you’ve been warned.. :)
It sounds more like he's upset that after losing his son, the other passengers in the Jeep then dragged him to court because they wanted a larger share of the settlement.
He’s upset that other, living, victims of the collision got a larger share of the payout than he did.
It appears to be quite the other way around. The living victims were upset that he got a larger share of the settlement, and took him to court to get some of it.
Right, but now he’s upset over having to share, which is the occasion of this coin-drop. (I think that’s quite an amusing thing, too, especially since it was dropped on lawyers!)
The way I read it, the coin-drop was just a way of getting publicity about the case. From his perspective the survivors were telling him the loss of his son just wasn't worth that much.
He already had $1.6 million. But who knows, the additional $500,000 might have been what he needed to get over his loss.
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