If a court tells you to pay a fine, say 100 bucks, but you pay 200… what happens?

Would anything change depending on why you did it? Like, if you overpaid by mistake or if you did it to make a point? Would they treat it differently in those cases?

The court probably won’t care at all.

Nothing would happen. There’s no rule against giving extra money.

You’d probably just get 100 back and be done with it.

The clerk’s office would likely just give you the extra back. The judge wouldn’t be involved at all.

Pretty unusual question though.

Yeah, the court clerk handling the fines would just give you the 100 back as change.

How exactly would you overpay? Most payments are either online or handled by a cashier, and they wouldn’t usually accept more than you owe. You could say it’s for case 12023457 and throw extra money at them, but you’d just end up without a receipt.

Usually you’d pay the court cashier or clerk, not the judge. If you paid in cash, they’d probably give you change. If you used a check, I guess it’s the same. If it’s a big overpayment, they might not have the cash on hand but it wouldn’t cause much trouble. The cashier might just get annoyed.

Imagine the worst outcome: They think you’re trying to bribe them and charge you with that.

Rohan said:
Imagine the worst outcome: They think you’re trying to bribe them and charge you with that.

It wouldn’t be a bribe since it’s after the fact. It’d be more like a gratuity.