My Good Deed For The Day

Leaving court this morning, I noticed a piece of paper — neat and trifolded — under the wheels of my car. I looked at it again, and it was some guy’s pay stub. There are lots of reasons why a pay stub might be in court — it might be evidence, it might be for a debtor’s exam, it might be for a child support hearing, who knows?

But I remembered that there are certain kinds of people you will find in a courthouse, every day. Lawyers, judges, clerks, and cops. Oh, and criminals. Lots of criminals. Identity theft is a pretty bad thing to have happen to you and there’s a lot of information on a pay stub which an unscrupulous thief could use to his advantage.

So I took it back to the office (yes, I ran a conflict check on it and he wasn’t in our database at all) and I mailed it back to the address on the stub. Whether the guy was a debtor, an upstanding citizen, or a third party, he shouldn’t have his personal information out on the parking lot where criminals could have easy access to it. Seemed like the right thing to do.

Burt Likko

Pseudonymous Portlander. Homebrewer. Atheist. Recovering litigator. Recovering Republican. Recovering Catholic. Recovering divorcé. Recovering Former Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. House Likko's Words: Scite Verum. Colite Iusticia. Vivere Con Gaudium.