You see a person unintentionally drop an item without noticing that would fit in a person’s pocket. That person is walking on a public street, and you are behind them and pick up the item.
4 scenarios:
[ol]
[li]The person is well known and easily identifiable, and the item has a high amount of monetary value, > $10K[/li][li]The person is well known and easily identifiable, and the item has no monetary value, though it may have high personal value to the person who dropped it[/li][li]The person is unknown and the item has a high amount of monetary value, > $10K[/li][li]The person is unknown and the item has no monetary value, though it may have high personal value to the person who dropped it[/li][/ol]
In any of the above scenarios, does the person who finds the item have a legal duty/obligation to return the item? Can they sell it, keep it, dispose of it at their discretion?
In all four scenarios the person is obligated to try to return the property to the owner. The exact wording of the rulings or law can vary, but in every state it’s some flavor of ‘if the item reasonably doesn’t appear to be deliberately abandoned, you must make a reasonable effort to find the owner and return the item or its some kind of theft’. What exactly constitutes ‘reasonable’ can vary a lot, but in the OP you specified that the finder saw the person “unintentionally” drop the item so there’s no reasonable way to argue that the abandonment was deliberate, and the rightful owner is standing right in front of the finder so there’s no argument that it was unreasonably hard to locate him.
Note that you could simply ignore the item and walk by, you’re not required to get involved, just not allowed to take the item.
A friend of mine who worked in Saudi Arabia for a few years, mentioned that you could lose your wallet in the middle of the street and find it there the next day - nobody would dare pick it up because they could be accused of theft for holding it, and the penalties are pretty severe.
OTOH, the NYC cops were for a while running a scam where they would leave a wallet with money on a subway platform and arrest anyone who picked it up and appeared to be leaving with it.
Once I found a $10 bill on the floor of an unattended parking garage. There was no reasonable way to locate the owner with any reliability. If I had asked around, every person I asked would have said it was theirs. So it went in my pocket.
Thanks for the answers. My question stemmed from the item that was seen dropping from Clinton while she headed away from the 9/11 memorial. Then I thought about if any various celebrity dropped something, what would or could happen to it.
The general law of Property in any jurisdiction I can think of says that ownership always remains with the original person. At least “in personam” ie. a higher right than any other person, except if it is an unlawful item.
Yes, I saw several news stories about the subway-wallet bit; and not “stepped away for a few seconds” but an abandoned wallet lying on the ground. The person could have taken it and got on the train in a hurry, intending to turn it in at the destination. the police didn’t give them a chance.
It did seem like a severe waste of time and entrapment at least.
I wonder what would happen if I kicked the wallet onto the tracks? Probably get charged with littering?
Is this really entrapment though? Just because something exists in the world such that you can take it doesn’t seem like a high enough bar to escape prosecution. Where would you draw the line on this? Left your car unlocked and someone stole it? Locked your door but didn’t have a security system?
That seems a little thin as a defense. It doesn’t seem like it would rise to inducing an otherwise law abiding citizen to commit a crime.
Not that it makes it good police policy. Claiming that you were going to try call a number in the wallet, or taking it to the police station, seems that it would easily be enough reasonable doubt.
Does your wallet have your phone number in it? Email address? Mine doesn’t. If does have my address, on my license. There might be some clues to how to find someone. Simply taking lost property with you does not necessarily constitute theft. Grabbing money out of a purse left unattended for 30 seconds is obviously theft. Taking the whole wallet you found on the ground is not necessarily proof of intent to steal. They could be planning to return it in person. but instead, they get to pay thousands for a criminal lawyer to avoid getting a record, which depending on their career may disqualify them from ever having a job, convicted or not. It may simply be false arrest. in the article linked, the daughter opened the car door and looked in, at which point the mother was also arrested. Then we’re back to the problem that if the police need to embellish the details to ensure they are not in the wrong… who will disbelieve them over some arrested poor person?