When Roger Herrin learned that a court had ordered him to repay $500,000 he had received in insurance payments for the death of his son, he decided to protest the order in an unusual way: he paid approximately a third of the money back in quarters, which, altogether, weighed nearly four tons.

Herrin's 15-year-old son, Michael, was killed in a car accident in 2001. Because Michael was the only one of the four passengers in the car who died, Herrin received the bulk of the $800,000 settlement from the car's insurance. Herrin also received $1.65 million in other insurance payments as a result of his son's death.

The other crash victims and their families contested the ruling, and a legal battle continued between the families until an appellate court ordered Herrin to refund his share to increase the other families' take

"They can have all the money in the world, and I'd take my son back,” Herrin told WSIL. “To support, my deceased son and ex-wife, I have to fight it to the very end, and this is the final end.”

The 7,500 pounds of quarters were packed in 50 pound, transparent bags, and transported from the Federal Reserve in St. Louis to the law offices of the attorneys representing the other families on a flatbed truck and in an armored truck. Naturally, the attorneys receiving the quarters weren't pleased.

"We've been on pins and needles because we had a lot of cash suddenly laying around [and] it was publicized," Mark Prince, an attorney for the car's driver and her son, said. "We don't have safes or vaults, and we lock our front door. Advance notice would have been nice, because we could have made arrangements to have it delivered to the bank."

Not that Herrin regrets the inconvenience he caused. "I really wanted to do it in pennies,” he told NBC News.

[Image via AP]

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