Cash your dang check already!

Now here's some irony for you.

Remember all the weeping and wailing from the thousands who claimed injury and injustice from the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989?

Well, it turns out a bunch of the plaintiffs who have received punitive damages payments from Exxon have not bothered to cash their checks yet!

So says the Seattle law firm that's handling the distribution of Exxon money for the plaintiffs.

"The Administrator notes that a substantial number of checks issued by the EQSF (Exxon Qualified Settlement Fund) from 2008 to present remain un-cashed," the firm said in a posting Friday to its information Web site. "The Administrator urges all recipients of such checks to negotiate them, immediately, to avoid having a bank refuse to honor them as stale."

The firm adds that people with uncashed checks are placing any future interest payments from Exxon in jeopardy.

"For claimants who appear on a future application for punitive damages interest, who have failed to cash their check for punitive damages, the Administrator may be required to VOID their previously issued punitive damages check. To avoid such action, claimants should promptly negotiate these previously issued checks."

Guess somebody better head to the bank, huh.