Is it legal to write a check that will bounce and leave it in a public place?
<p>John Doe, who has $50 in his checking account, write a check to CASH for $1,000,000 and signed it, then left the check in a public place. Jane Smith tried to deposit it, and it bounced. Did John do anything illegal? Can Jane sue him for the money?</p>

<p>From the description it seems that Joe abandoned the check (and didn't lose it, or gave it to Jane as a present, or for payment), so anyone finding it can pick it up and keep it.</p>
<p>If I abandon a wallet with 10,000 dollars in fake banknotes, can I be sued for the money? Obviously the faked banknotes might get me into trouble, but I don’t think I’d owe the finder $10,000. That might be quite close to the question.</p>
<p>I could argue that a finder of abandoned things gets exactly what they found, could be a broken bicycle (worth repairing or not), could be a crime novel with the last page ripped out, in this case a check over a million that is worth nothing because nobody will pay out for it.</p>
<p>Or I might have written the check to pay a debt to Joe, Joes bank manager just laughed, so Joe threw the check away in a public place. For extra fun, imagine I win a million in the lottery and it gets put into my account…</p>
<p>I’d recommend not doing that kind of thing to avoid trouble for everyone.</p>

<h2>Jane committed a crime</h2>
<p>No matter if the check was valid, <strong>it wasn't Jane's check</strong>. &quot;Finders keepers&quot; is <strong>not</strong> good law. By trying to cash it immediately, jane committed at least one crime and might also have committed forgery (by filling in her name as the recipient).</p>
<p>It also claimed to be a high enough value that in <a href="/questions/tagged/germany" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;germany&#39;" rel="tag">germany</a>, Jane would be obligated to go to the police and declare the found item - <strong>Anything</strong> worth more than 10 € is to be declared that way because keeping a found item is &quot;Unterschlagung&quot; after <a href="https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__246.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">§246 StGB</a> and for &quot;low value items&quot; (the 10 € limit) it requires the owner to request prosecution under <a href="https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__248a.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">§248a</a>.</p>
<p>Only after declaring the found item, Jane can get entitled to anything of the check: if the real owner is found and can prove it is his, then Jane is entitled to 3% or 5% of the real value of the check - 5% for 500€ and below, 3% for above. But in this case, the real value of the check is nothing and so there is no Finderlohn: even if it presents to be more, it is worth noting. However, since it is a check, the one writing it can be trivially located by police and bank, meaning that the owner is easily found... and the real value as &quot;nothing&quot; found out.</p>
<p>Only after a waiting period of 6 months after declaring the found item the check would become her property. Only now Jane might have claim to the money the check presents to be worth - but the police will have found John as the previous clear owner by then and brought him back his check.</p>
<h2>When Jane isn't entitled to the money, she can't sue.</h2>
<p>A person is not entitled to the proceeds of a crime. As a result, she can't sue for the money.</p>

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