I was rereading the Acts of Gord, a collection of stories about a video game store owner in Canada.
In one of his stories he has acquired an accessory that damages any game system it’s plugged into. He leaves it on the counter with the expectation that it will be stolen and then later plugged into a console which will then be broken.
The question of course is what if any liability Gord has for the damaged hardware. I know that mantraps that injure someone will get you sued and probably fined or jailed. But this is just simple property damage.
ISTM that could come down to who has the better lawyer and/or the age of the shoplifter. The store owner could easily argue that it was stolen and tell a story about how he was modfying it for some personal project, it was never meant to actually be used in a playstation. If he, or his lawyer, could make that believable, he’d probably be okay.
OTOH, the shoplifter would probably need to start by showing that the theft and the damage to his property are two separate incidents. Give him a ticket for retail theft, he can pay his fine and restitution and now, as a civil case, he can argue that the shop owner knowingly damaged his property. He may also be able to argue some kind of entrapment, assuming he had never been in trouble in the past and he was just a kid and saw it sitting right there by the door.
If the kid is young enough, maybe they could try to use the attractive nuisance defense. Not that exactly, I know it doesn’t apply perfectly, but that idea. The shop owner left a regularly stolen item in a place where it was likely to get stolen, but he booby trapped it and now there’s damage involved.
The person with the damaged playstation would probably do best to sue (or have a lawyer write a letter) Nintendo and go from there. Let Nintendo’s lawyers deal with the game shop.
In the end, personally, I think if anything became of it, it would be that the game store owner would have to buy the shoplifter a new console or settle for a few hundred dollars.
You have to keep in mind that we have an omniscient narrator. If this actually happened, the person with the damaged playstation probably wouldn’t realize that it was because of the card and even if they did they probably wouldn’t guess that it happened by design.
I’m sure there’s all kinds of incorrect things here, this is just sort of the way I thought it all out.
This accessory will damage any console it’s plugged into, right? How can the store owner be sure that only the thief will suffer? What’s the likelihood that this booby-trapped accessory will get passed on to some innocent person after it has done its damage to the intended target? As Joey P notes, the thief will probably not realize their console got bricked by the stolen item. So now they have a useless console, which they might replace, or perhaps they can’t or won’t replace it so they will want to dispose of the supposedly still-functional accessories somehow… Whoever casually put out this device intending for it to be used is responsible for all damage it causes down the road until he recovers it somehow.
And if their excuse is … “Someone left it here - I opened it and checked it out, but did not understand it, and left it out in case the owner came back in…”?
The key in any lawsuit I would imagine would be proving the damage was intentional if it’s decoy enough to look legitimate.
IANAL, but if I were a juror in either a criminal or civil case against Gord, I would be strongly tempted to consider nullification. Listen to all the evidence with a straight face, and then find against the guy who stole it, or anyone who acquired it from the guy who stole it.
“I stole it, and it ruined my game console”. I stop listening after the first comma.
Working on the assumption that this is real, how do you feel about the bait bike videos?
No one is saying that they’re not stealing the bikes, but should the owners be penalized for creating an enticing situation [unlocked, unsupervised bike in an area that gets a lot of foot traffic) knowing the end result will harm someone?
My recollection from law school is that an intervening criminal act breaks the chain of causation for civil liability. As long as the store owner wasn’t actively conspiring with the thief, he may well be in the clear.
I understand that the owner can be sued by the thief. Anyone can be sued for anything. This is America after all. ETA: But good luck proving the owner intended for the cart to be stolen.
My question is whether the local DA would have any interest in the case. Have any laws actually been broken?
That was my issue with the OP, we knew the intent of both sides ahead of time. And the issue you brought up is why it may very well come down to who has the better lawyer.
It’s not really changing the premise, just adding in a caution, whether or not a shoplifter could pursue damages, his tricked out device could end up going to a legitimate customer.
Ruining your game console is somewhat different from crashing a stolen bike, although I see that the principle is much the same. You aren’t going to die or break a limb from a video game sabotage.
Then again, “serves you right, you fucking thief” is a principle that isn’t enshrined into law as much as I might like.
What does Nintendo have to do with this? Sony makes the Playstation. If you drove a Chevy down a road you knew you weren’t supposed be on, and got flat tires from spikes planted there, would you sue Ford?
The premise, the way I understood it, is about whether or not you’re on the hook for damaged property since you stole the item that did the damage.
The way you presented it, the item was legitimately purchased. I can’t see any reason why the store wouldn’t be on the hook for that.