DENVER, Colorado – Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters might be legal tender but about three tonnes of loose change is not a proper form of payment, a Colorado judge ruled last week after a defendant attempted to deliver US$23,500 (S$32,000) in coins to settle a legal dispute.

Judge Joseph Findley of Larimer County said the delivery of more than three tonnes was done “maliciously and in bad faith”, and that the defendant, a welding company, must now pay more for its act.

Welding company JMF Enterprises and its owner, Mr John Frank, were sued by custom fabrication company Fired Up Fabrication, which said it worked as a sub-contractor for JMF Enterprises but did not get paid in full.

The companies agreed to the settlement in mediation on July 25, but the agreement did not specify the form of payment, according to Judge Findley’s order.

A month later, one day after the payment deadline, on a Friday night, JMF Enterprises attempted to make a “night-time delivery” to Fired Up Fabrications, but company officials rejected it because they at first thought it was a forklift being delivered, according to the judge’s order.

On Aug 28, the following Monday, “an attempt was made to deliver a heavy metal container of coins that required a forklift to move” to lawyers for Fired Up Fabrications, the order said, but it was “physically impossible” to deliver.

A lawyer for JMF Enterprises did not respond to requests for comment.

JMF Enterprises’ Facebook page posted a video with news coverage of the payment and included a GIF of an animated Donald Trump doing the Running Man dance.

Mr Clifford Beem, a partner at Beem & Isley, which represented Fired Up Fabrications, said he was at the law firm’s downtown Denver office when a truck driver called to ask about the location of the freight elevator, so he could deliver the coins.

“I’ve been a trial lawyer for 55 years, and I’ve seen a lot of strange things, but this is a new one for me,” Mr Beem said.

Mr Beem said that the office was in a 100-year-old building and could hold only a maximum of about 1.4 tonnes on its freight elevator. The driver said the delivery was “well over” three tonnes, he said.

“That would have crashed our freight elevator right down to the basement,” Mr Beem said.

After the failed coin delivery attempt, which CBS Colorado reported, JMF Enterprises declined to pay the settlement by cheque, arguing that the coins were legal tender, the judge’s order said.

Judge Findley ruled on Oct 23 that the payment must be made in the form of a cheque, certified bank cheque or any other manner that both parties agreed to.

In the order, the judge said that while coins were legal tender, paying such a large settlement in coins would reduce the settlement because of the time and expense required to accept it.

He said photographs showed that the coins had also been removed from neatly organised boxes and dumped “loosely and randomly” into a metal container.

The judge ordered JMF Enterprises and Mr Frank to pay additional fees related to the costs of extending the case and dealing with the coin payment.

Mr Beem said his firm submitted an application for at least US$8,000 in fees “for the time we’ve spent dealing with this coin issue and trying to get it resolved”. The judge is reviewing the application.

In June, a federal judge in Georgia ordered the owner of an auto repair shop to pay nearly US$40,000 in back pay and damages after he paid a former employee’s wages with about 91,500 greasy pennies left in his driveway. NYTIMES