29 Students Gets Detention For Paying For Lunch With Pennies

[jeffrey]

29 N.J. Eighth-Graders Get 2 Days Detention After Forking Over Nearly 6,000 Coins.

It's plastered on their shirts and these eighth graders wear it proudly because on Thursday they pulled a prank at the Readington Middle School, paying for their lunches entirely in pennies.

"At first it started out as a joke, then everyone else started saying we're protesting against like how short our lunch is," student Alyssa Concannon said.

Several lunch ladies who had to do the counting didn't think it was funny, even though some of the students put the coins in rolls. They're not authorized to put in their two cents but school officials say they felt disrespected and other students didn't get to eat lunch.

Rest of story:
wcbstv.com - Students Punished After Buying Lunch With Pennies

[bjl584]

That's interesting. Pennies are legal tender. The school has to accept them as such. I can see why the kids would get in trouble over this, as their actions were to deliberately disrupt lunch, but if I were a lawyer of one of the kids I would probably argue that the fact that the cafeteria workers were not properly equipped to count the coins out in a timely manner which caused others not to be able to eat is irrelevant in this case. Pennies are legal to use as is any other denomination of currency. The school can't legally punish someone for paying for lunch with them.

[sweeps]

Actually there was another thread some time back about businesses not accepting currency/coins even though they are legal tender. I think the general consensus was it is legal for a business to not accept certain forms of payment if it doesn't want to.

This is similar to gas stations not accepting $50 and $100 bills even though they are legal tender.

As to these students getting 2-day detentions, that sounds unfair to me. I think it was a pretty creative protest from them. There may have been more to the story.

[bjl584]

That's an interesting point. Although, gas stations may want to rethink their not accepting $50 or $100 bills this summer if gas gets any higher.

[jIM_Ohio]

I paid for ralleys in pennies a few weeks ago. I am getting better milage now that my change tray is half empty.

If companies do not accept pennies, they cannot give them back as change either.

If someone wants to pi$$ me off when I am making a purchase, I will find the time to withdraw the payment in pennies and bring in a wheel barrel of pennies to make the purchase.

I knew someone which paid his car downpayment in pennies when the company missed the first delivery date.