Legal Question in Civil Litigation in New York

check cashing fraud

I own a small corp where my employee lost his 2 payroll checks. Later someone found those checks, made a false ID and cashed the checks at a check cashing place. Before the checks were presented the employee called us and I put the stop psyment order. Three days later after I stopped the payment the person with false ID cashed the check. Now the check cashing place is forcing us to pay the amount which is around $1,000. They served us a summon where we have to appear in the court. Since its a corp I cannot go myself. The corp has to hire an attorney. The cost of hiring an attorney might more than the claim. Now i dont know what to do in this situation. I have all the evidence that the checks were not cashed by our employee. Please give me a suggestion. Thanks


Asked on 4/17/03, 3:03 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
John Friedman Law Office of John K. Friedman

Re: check cashing fraud

Your question indicates you are a New York company doing business in New York state. Thus, as an officer of the corporation (I assume you are an officer as you own the company) you can represent the company in court. As the claim is for less than $2500, I assume that the summons you received is from a small claims court. In that case you will likely be offered arbitration rather than an actual trial before a judge. If the summons is from a court above small claims (i.e. county civil or state supreme court) then you might want to at least consult an attorney to review the issues.

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Answered on 4/17/03, 3:10 pm


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