More details???
It sounds like you thought the gas station put out free coffee for the customers.
I always figure that in the long run, it balances out with the times when the opposite happens, i.e. you put something in the cart, it gets scanned, and one way or another, it doesn’t make it into the bags to go home, or I forget an entire bag of stuff.
Actually the opposite has happened to me too. Get home, wife says “” Where’s the bottle of ??? you were supposed to buy?" Check receipt and it’s on there. Rung up and never bagged somehow.
Worth the trouble and gas to drive back the store? No way. Same thing… I just said “to hell with it.”
And technically that could be considered theft by store from me…assuming they found the item later and restocked it.
I am sure I paid for the coffee the great majority of the time, I can’t really give details because I have no recollection of walking out without paying.
Might just have been mistaken identity by the clerk.
I hope this is not veering too far off-topic, but if someone damages an item in a store in what was obviously an accident, does a shopkeeper who insists on getting reimbursed for the damage have any legal backup for that stance?
As for me, in the rare circumstances when I’ve noticed an item wasn’t rung up properly once I’ve returned home, I’ve never gone back again because I’m worried the cashier might get in trouble. I guess if it was something that was more than a few dollars, I might go back, but that’s never actually come up.
YES, the breakage was a “direct causation” of the customer’s negligence, even if it was “slight” negligence.
That last part is one reason I’ve said to myself “to hell with it” and driven home. Jobs are lost too easily these days and hard to refind.
Going back into the store and bringing it up may end up being the third strike against some hapless cashier or bagger.
How did the talk go? With a class of Straight Dopers I can imagine “most plagiarism is not deliberately stealing” being questioned with “Cite?”. And with “the representation of another author’s work as one’s own”, to use a common definition, there is the issue of ethics. A useful, 24-year-old, overview of plagiarism is Thomas Mallon’s 1989 book Stolen Words, Walter Kendrick’s The New York Times review here, Amazon here.
An example of ethics is taking from works that are out of copyright. For example, O. Henry’s 1905 The Gift of the Magi has reappeared in subsequent works such as Argentinian author Jorge Bucay’s “Un relato sobre amor” (“A Story About Love”), in Spanish here, for example. Project Gutenberg has a copy of O. Henry here. Did Bucay ever credit O. Henry? Or did O. Henry also take the plot from an earlier source? And where did Aesop for example get his fables? (Not to mention Wikipedia.) And if an author like Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) borrows from, and improves upon, the works of other authors (Wikipedia overview here), how clear is the line between between taking and re-creating?
Further, plagiarism includes other other arts such as music. An overview of Led Zeppelin, “These guys sound great until you hear all the old records they stole their riffs from”, is here. Another issue is self-plagiarism, for example re-selling (part of) one’s work to another buyer. For current info, a site like Language Log here has comments more articulate than mine.
Incorrect. Assuming that you are not in cahoots with the clerk (I love the word “cahoots”) and the stuff you bought was all plainly visible (not hidden in your pocket), then you and the clerk basically had a contract to buy “x Stuff” for “y bucks”. You have the stuff. You paid the money. Contract fulfilled.
Now keep in mind, I’m not making a moral argument here…
I was considering the same thing. Usually conversion requires that you did have a right/permission to have the item in question at some point; instead of giving it back, you converted the item into your possession. Intent to deprive is not needed for conversion, so that fits. And at least some cases of conversion do not require that you had a previous right to the item in question.
I think I would have to agree with you, that unintentional shoplifting is more likely to be conversion than theft.
Can’t you just check if it’s still as wet as when you put it on the cart?
Don’t understand that one. Wet??
Will admit that what I should have done was to go through the whole receipt to see if it had been wrung up and ,if not, go back into the store and pay for it.
What gives me pause is I may end up getting either the cashier or bagger in trouble by doing that.
I would be perceived as the unusually honest and upright customer. Hoorah for me. And some poor schmuck might lose his/her job just to make me look good.
I’ve set out below how the law in England would deal with your examples. The background is that the definition of theft is “A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it”:
You had not committed theft when you walked out of the store with your prayer book, but as soon as you realised you’d taken it and decided not to send it back, it became theft. This is because ‘appropriating’ property includes coming by it innocently but then deciding to keep it. At that point you have dishonestly appropriated it.
This depends on whether you realised the clerk had done this, and whether you thought it was deliberate.
If you never realise they’ve undercharged you, it’s not theft.
If you realise they’ve undercharged you but mistakenly think they’ve done it deliberately, e.g. as a favour for a good customer, then it’s not theft.
But if you realise they’ve accidentally undercharged you, either at the time or later after you’ve left the store, but decide not to go back and pay for it, then (technically) it’s theft.
I’d recommend reading the first 6 sections of the UK Theft Act 1968: they’re very brief and they clearly and explicitly set out how the law deals with these kind of examples.
A cashier rings up your purchases. Wringing something up is what you do to a wet rag to get the water out. Just a friendly spelling joke. 
Different jurisdictions treat it differently, but generally “conversion” is the trespassory taking intentional or not, of the property of another and in doing so you deprive the owner of all of the value of it. If you only partially devalue the item it is a “trespass to chattels.”
So, if I am at Subway and mindlessly pick up a sandwich off of the wrong table and eat it, I am liable to the owner for conversion: the fair market value of the sandwich. But I’m not guilty of a crime.
If I borrow the neighbor’s car without permission, drive it 200 miles, and return it, I am liable to him for a trespass to his chattel in the value of 200 miles worth of wear and tear and any other damage I might have done. Since the law wants to discourage this type of behavior, it has passed criminal joyriding statutes to address this situation.
But, if it wasn’t intentional. Say I got into an identical looking car (and for whatever reason my key worked) and drove it, I haven’t broken any law, but did commit a trespass to the true owner’s car and I owe him diminution in value damages.
Mens rea = “mind of the accused.”
Rens mea = “my kidneys.”
So, then based upon that, if the merchant does charge you for the item, but “forgets” to put in in your bag, is he guilty of theft? How about later, when he realizes what he has done?
If he intended to “forget”, then yes, that would be theft.
If he did not intend, then that would be conversion.