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this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
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I think I would have applied the silver at face value. "Thanks for your 50 Morgan dollars. We have lowered your balance by $50."
Ingots of silver can be rejected (not legal tender). But you are correct, US coinage is cash and is legal tender. For once, this is a scenario where that term actually applies. The poster owes a debt, and the legal tender must be accepted as payment.
However, since the poster offered the shipment as an offer for "payment in full", such an offer is "all or nothing". They cannot pick out the legal tender coinage and apply it to the debt while rejecting the rest of the shipment. It's not different to how if I owe you a debt of $500, then offer you $50 in cash and a silver ingot as payment in full, you are not entitled to keep the $50 as partial payment while sending the ingot back. You are only able to accept my offer and absolve the debt or reject it and send everything back.
Your second paragraph is correct but the first one is not. An individual is not required to accept legal tender. The government is, but individuals can accept or reject any form of payment.
Not quite. Any seller can reject any form of payment at the point of sale. But, after a contract has been established, private parties are required to accept U.S. currency as a form of payment.
Hence the words printed on paper money: "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE."
The case Marbury v. Madison (1803) established the power of Congress to declare legal tender. However, it also clarified that this power doesn't compel private entities to accept it for all transactions.
I'm not talking about a transaction like in a grocery store. I'm taking about contracts. Under contract law, a debt paid in US currency is considered fulfillment of the contract.