I am having this discussion with you more from a philosophical perspective. But to your point - does not losing a watch and then not reporting it damage the original owner's title to the watch? I mean this is a
half step away from leaving an old TV outside the house for someone to salvage, and then years later changing your mind about it and wanting it back.
OK, let's philosphise
😀
I've even gone so far as to pull on my glasses, though I've finished one beer already and I'm on to my second.
Please correct me if I'm wrong in any of these assertions. We're happily agreed that:
1) the person who has originally bought or been gifted an item is the lawful owner until he gives up (or otherwise loses) his title to the goods. Let's call this person the True Owner (TL).
2) A thief cannot gain title to any goods simply through the act of taking them.
3) That there is, at the very least in English Law, a principle that one cannot give better title to any goods than that which one has. (In basic terms, if I don't own something, I can't sell it. If I do sell it, the purchaser has no better title than I did).
Now, unless you come back not agreeing with those things, let's follow that through.
For simplicity, I'm going to give a new example:
A sailor lands in port after three months at sea. Having lived on nothing but dried fish and biscuits for the last 12 weeks, he heads straight to the nearest bar, orders a steak and a beer. Over the course of the next few hours, he orders another 15 beers. The next thing he knows, he wakes up at noon the following day and realises he's got no shoes on. He's confused. Hungover. Has only the slightest idea where he is but knows enough to find his way back to his boat.
On the way back, he passes the Salvation Army store and decides he really better find some new shoes, so he goes inside. Lo and behold, the first pair of shoes he finds are his! So, he makes a scene. He demands his shoes back. Starts swearing to everything holy that he must have been robbed. He grabs the shoes and, waving them at the store assistant, shows his name written in felt tip inside the shoes. Upset and feeling threatened, the store calls the police.
It turns out that a homeless man brought in the shoes and the store assistant bought them, The police easily find the homeless man and bring him back to the store.
So let's imagine:
A) the homeless man admits he stole the shoes from the sleeping sailor;
B) the homeless man found the shoes next to the sleeping sailor; or,
C) the homeless man says that the sailor gave him the shoes because the homeless man didn't have any ... only, they didn't fit so he sold them.
Does the fact that the sailor didn't report his shoes as being stolen until he saw them in the store have any effect on the three possible scenarios above?
Before you answer, I'm going to point you to an American case National Cash Registers v Malitz. The synopsis:
NCR leased office equipment and this case concerned an adding machine. Malitz was a pawn broker who had purchased and resold this adding machine. Everyone agreed that NCR was the true owner. Everyone agreed that the value Malitz paid for the machine should be returned to NCR in place of the machine that had, by then, been sold on (so the business took the hit rather than attempting to enforce recovery against the eventual buyer). What the court was asked to consider was this:
NCR failed to report the adding machine as having been stolen. Malitz operated a system of regularly checking with the local police and a directory of lost property that they maintained. NCR was aware of this practice and Malitz counter-sued NCR claiming that they had been negligent "That is, that by the failure of plaintiff to report the adding machine stolen to the police, the plaintiff is estopped from making a claim of ownership".
There were three reasons given for refusing this claim, the most pertinent to use being, "Does the owner of property who is informed of the manner in which pawnbrokers do business owe a duty to make public reports of stolen property by notifying the police so that those who deal with the thief or those who acquire possession from or through the wrongful acts of the thief will have notice of the owner's rights in the property? We know of no such rule of law."
So it seems that, at least in Ohio (this was a Court of Appeal case), there is also the principle that failure to report a theft doesn't damage the true owner's title.
If we go back to our shoe-less and hungover sailor, I would suggest the following:
A) he is a victim of theft and no-one could object to his recovering his shoes;
B) depending on how his shoes first left his feet (did he take them off because they were tight, or wet or uncomfortable? Did he throw them away before passing out because they were annoying his inebriated self?) he either still has title or he has given away his title; and,
C) in this instance, he has given away his title to a third party (though we might have to consider if he was legally capable of this because of his drunken state).
Now, finally (I think) if we go to your example of a TV: if this TV is left on the side of the street we have to ask why it is there. Is there a sign on it saying "Free TV"? Has it been left there to be collected by a recycling company? Has that recycler already paid something for the TV? Is the TV actually in a skip, bin or dumpster? These things are important because they indicate if someone has given up the rights to the TV. If that TV is sitting in a skip/dumpster, in the UK, it is actually the property of the person or company who owns the skip. (Dumpster diving in the UK is theft - you must always ask the permission of the skip owner, though many people would ask the permission of the person throwing things in the skip).
Look forward to seeing what you come back with... something tells me that you will have something
😉
