Payment owed

[Mggs11]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New York

One of my clients recently closed his restaurant business. It was incorporated. He called me to say he was closing his business and send all outstanding invoices, in which he then send 4checks out of which all bounced.I would like to take him to court,however what I’ve read online states if he is incorporated I can not collect from him personally. Is there any other way I might be able to collect on payment owed to me. Thank you

 

[adjusterjack]

It's true that the corporation protects him from the liabilities of the corporation unless you had him sign a personal guarantee for your business dealings with him.

However, since he signed the checks, I believe that he would be personally responsible under NY's bad check law.

See:

http://law.justia.com/codes/new-york/2016/gob/article-11/title-1/11-104/

Issuing a bad check is also addressed by the NY Penal Code Sections 190.00 - 190.15:

http://law.justia.com/codes/new-york/2016/pen/part-3/title-k/article-190/

I'd start with a demand letter advising him of the potential consequences of not making good on the checks in cash and giving him, say, two weeks to make good.

Act accordingly if he doesn't.

 

[latigo]

It's true that the corporation protects him from the liabilities of the corporation unless you had him sign a personal guarantee for your business dealings with him.

However, since he signed the checks, I believe that he would be personally responsible under NY's bad check law.

I'd start with a demand letter advising him of the potential consequences of not making good on the checks in cash and giving him, say, two weeks to make good.

Yeah! That is really smart advice!

Encourage the OP to commit criminal extortion by threatening him to either make personal good on the check - (which you yourself admit he is under no legal obligation) - or face criminal prosecution. All of which is proscribed by a section of the New York Penal Code that you seem to have overlooked:

§ 135.60 Coercion in the second degree. A person is guilty of coercion in the second degree when he or she compels or induces a person to engage in conduct which the latter has a legal right to abstain from engaging in * * * * * by means of instilling in him or her a fear that, if the demand is not complied with, the actor or another will:
* * * * *
4. Accuse some person of a crime or cause criminal charges to be instituted against him or her; * * * *

Furthermore, if you knew as much about the workings of this business as you purport to know, you might be aware that the prosecution often looks upon efforts at collection of a NSF check as an acknowledgement of a debtor/creditor relationship as opposed to being criminally victimized. A defense well known to the prosecution and one they would prefer to avoid. They are also conscious of the absence of fraud when the check is issued in payment of an antecedent debt.

 

[adjusterjack]

§ 135.60 Coercion in the second degree. A person is guilty of coercion in the second degree when he or she compels or induces a person to engage in conduct which the latter has a legal right to abstain from engaging in * * * * * by means of instilling in him or her a fear that, if the demand is not complied with, the actor or another will:
* * * * *
4. Accuse some person of a crime or cause criminal charges to be instituted against him or her; * * * *

Shows how much you don't know.

1 - The latter has no legal right to abstain from engaging in making good on a bad check.

And:

135.75 Coercion; defense.
In any prosecution for coercion committed by instilling in the victim
a fear that he or another person would be charged with a crime, it is an
affirmative defense that the defendant reasonably believed the
threatened charge to be true and that his sole purpose was to compel or
induce the victim to take reasonable action to make good the wrong which
was the subject of such threatened charge.

Demanding that somebody make good on a bad check and pointing out the potential for criminal prosecution (as well as a civil suit) if he doesn't isn't criminal coercion by any stretch of the imagination.

smh