33,500 Reasons Why Karl Is An Ass

Court Win Nets Mich. Man 33,500 Pennies
April 11, 2007
A penny saved is a penny earned, but one man believes 33,500 pennies won are best donated to a worthy cause.
Bob Wilson, who won a small claims court case last month, will donate the pennies to the Oakland Livingston Human Service Agency, which has helped him with heating bills.
Wilson was given the pennies by Karl Stepen, owner of NSK Motorsports in Fowlerville, after a judge ruled in Wilson's favor and awarded him $335.
Stepen said he paid Wilson in pennies to show his contempt for Wilson. 'We paid him in legal U.S. currency,' Stepen said.
Wilson said he bought a dirt bike for his 13-year-old son and took it NSK in May to get it running. He didn't get the bike back until October, and he said it stopped working almost immediately.
He took the bike back to NSK and it sat unfixed for a few more months. He picked it up and took it to another shop, which charged him $900, he said.
Stepen said he had the bike 'for some time,' but he's a one-man operation with as many as 70 motorcycles waiting to be repaired. He said he did everything he could to help Wilson with the 30-year-old bike and offered to fix a second problem for free.
District Judge Theresa Brennan, who handled the appeal for Wilson's claim, said she's never heard of someone paying the court in pennies in her 22 years of practicing law.
Still, she said, it's legal: 'We don't dictate the form of payment.'