Galatia Community State Bank honored a check it took for collection for $5,550, which was the amount imprinted by a check-writing machine in the center underlined section of the check commonly used for stating the amount in words. The imprint looked like this:

RegistereD

No. 497345** **5550 DOL’S 00 CTS

The impression made by the check-writing machine could be felt on the front and back of the check, and “**5550 DOL’S 00 CTS” was imprinted in red ink. In the box on the right-hand side of the check commonly used for numbers, “6,550.00” appeared in handwriting. The check was in partial payment of the purchase price of two engines that Eugene Kindy was buying from the payee on the check, Tony Hicks. Kindy postdated the check by a month and deliberately placed two different amounts on the check because he thought the bank would check with him before paying it. 

Kindy wanted to be sure that the engines had been delivered to Canada before he paid the $6,550 balance of the purchase price. After the check was deposited in the Galatia Bank and Hicks was given $5,550, an employee of the bank altered the “6” by hand to read “5.” Because Kindy had stopped payment on the check, the drawee bank refused to pay it to Galatia Bank. Galatia Bank then brought suit against Kindy as the drawer of the check. One of the issues in the lawsuit was how the check should be construed. The trial court found that the rules on construction provided in the Code were not helpful because they were contradictory. Does the amount in figures imprinted by the check-writing machine ($5,550) control over the amount written by hand in figures ($6,550)?