Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: Expired Check

A bank is not obligated to honor a check more than six months old when presented for payment, but it may do so if it acts in good faith. See Commercial Code section 4404. Have you tried and failed to deposit the check? If not, I'd give it a try, but maintain sufficient balances so that if it is dishonored you're not overdrawn.

After some search, I have found no case directly on point as to the employer's ongoing liability to you, either to honor the check or to pay you in some other way, such as by issuing you a new check. If you were to sue, you might have a statute of limitations problem (it's four years on a written contract) and the employer would also have the defense that it did pay you, and you are at fault for not cashing the check.

I did find one case raising the possibility that funds representing uncashed insurance-claim checks couldn't be "booked" as income by the insurance-company payor because they may have escheated to the state.

I'll be interested to see if any other attorney can come up with a documented answer, or even an opinion based on surmise.