Court rules man liable for bank's cheque error

[Brendan Burgess]

Interesting story in today's [broken link removed]
Mr Larkin made out a cheque to his solicitor for €50,000 in March 2009.
AIB treated it as a cheque for €50 and paid the solicitor €50 and deducted €50 from Mr Larkin's accounts
In Jan 2010, the solicitors notified AIB of the mistake, and AIB paid the solicitors the balance of €49,950
AIB sought the €49,950 from Mr Larkin
He refused on the grounds that after 6 months, the cheque was "gone stale".
AIB sued him for the €49,950
The judge did not believe that Mr Larkin was not aware of the mistake soon after it was made and told him to pay it to AIB.

A good summary from the judge

Mr Justice John Hedigan ruled that as Mr Larkin had the benefit of the outstanding money, he had raised no plausible defence. He was in this position probably as a result of a mistake by others but this was not just a court of law, it was also a court of justice, the judge said. Justice could not be served except by ensuring Mr Larkin met his obligations when he had asked his bank to pay his solicitors their fees.

 

[Lightning]

Yeah, very interesting.


Also, AIB sought some a significant €6,800 interest from him when the case issued.

 

[Palerider]

Whilst nobody naturally likes Banks, they must make a profit and at times mistakes happen, usually with human intervention as in this case with a simple mis-type whilst keying the transaction. Maybe the staff members need glasses but he owed the money and in my opinion should have come clean just as soon as he knew what had happened, whenever that was.

A good call by the justice system and an issue that should never have got to Court.