Liberating items from a shopping trolley

Factual Questions
41

Sadly, I worked retail for some time, a long time ago.
Usually, as floor staff, you’d go to the stockroom to try to find a second article for the loser. I seem to remember writing it off for the loser, but the item in question wasn’t anything terribly expensive–maybe a flannel shirt?
The jerk? He’d be eyed suspiciously forever. Gossip used to travel fast when stores were fully staffed.

The action would probably be called disorderly conduct, if someone wanted to press the issue.

OTOH, how often have you gone into a checkout line with something you’d never-ever buy slipped into your cart?

42

Actual, out-loud chuckle.

43

And in a “stand your ground” state, blow away the etiquette-challenged with a bazooka?

44

Sadly, I have a decades-old memory of a Reader’s Digest anecdote, possibly from “Life In These United States” (in theory, those stories are supposed to be true) that is sort of the antithesis to the OP, in that (the story goes) a man was out grocery shopping when he ran into a neighbor, and the neighbor remembered that he had borrowed two cans of tuna from the man, so the neighbor took two cans of tuna from their cart and put the cans in the man’s cart; the man consequently thanked the neighbor, they said their goodbye, and went back to shopping. The man then relates that he was in the process of checking-out by the time he realized the neighbor hadn’t actually paid for the tuna, and so had stuck him with the bill.

While this illustrates that Readers’s Digest humor stories kind of sucked back in the day, the more pressing question is how do I repurpose the neurons which retain this story for more important memory usage?

45

I thought it was amusing.

46

Sorry, Poe’s Law. Or to paraphrase, “In the Internet, no one can tell you’re only pretending to be a dick.”

47

I think the story is funny!

And no, you can’t repurpose the neurons. That story is with you forever. And now, this whole thread has joined them, taking even more neurons.

48

I believe the relevant legal principles were pretty firmly set by the landmark case of Finders v. Keepers.

49

So I’m about as much of a British law-talking guy as I am a French nuclear submariner, but I looked up the UK’s theft statute. It says:

A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and “thief” and “steal” shall be construed accordingly.

The statute goes on to explain that “belonging to another” as someone having “possession of control of it.” By the plain text of the law, one need not have ownership of something in order for it to be stolen from me. For example, if I borrow a coat from my friend, and someone takes it from me, I am the victim of the theft.

So the obvious question is whether putting something in one’s cart constitutes taking possession of it. While I can’t answer that as a factual matter, I can’t imagine another time at which one would take possession of a carton of milk. Would it be when the clerk rings it up? That doesn’t make too much sense to me: that’s certainly when ownership transfers,but not much substantively happens in terms of the control of the item. I put something in my basket, the clerk either swipes it or just looks at it and rings it up. At that point, I’ve probably been holding the item for many minutes, and the clerk might touch it for all of two seconds, at most. I can’t figure the logic of me not possessing the item until a clerk has touched it to give it back to me. What happens if the clerk doesn’t touch it while ringing me up?

Does possession transfer when I walk out of the store with the items in my bag? This doesn’t make sense either. If I pick up milk, the clerk rings it up, I pay for it, but before I have a chance to leave the store, a thief grabs my milk and runs away. If possession only transferred after I left the store, that would mean that the thief stole from the store, not me, even after I had picked up the item, paid for it, and was on the verge of leaving the store. Again, that’s not compelling.

So I’m left with the idea that one takes possession of an item in a store when they actually pick it up from the shelf. As others have noted, think of the Black Friday example, where 60 inch TVs are sold for $5 while they last. Would I really be free to run around the store, seizing people’s shopping carts to my heart’s content, with no legal penalties at all? Must people be vigilant to defend their shopping carts and such valuable cargo until they have safely made it to the register or their car? That seems like a recipe for chaos.

I can’t say I know the factual answer to this question, but I’m casting my vote that taking items from other shoppers is indeed theft.

50

A colleague told me of his mother who made pin money by regularly sending short, “amusing” and totally fictional filler stories to the Reader’s Digest.

51

I believe the case you are referring to is Keepers v. Weepers.

52

You arguably have possession of the items in your shopping cart, but you do not exercise control over them. You can’t do anything with them other than keep them in your trolley until you get to the cash register.

Your coat analogy doesn’t work, because in this fact pattern you are still in your friend’s house when the coat gets stolen.

53

The statute says “possession OR control.” (The cut and paste rendered it as “of” rather than “or.”) So if one has possession, that’s sufficient to complete that element of the crime. When do you believe that possession is established?

54

Suppose you were carrying an item in your hands that you had just taken off the shelf. Someone comes up and wrests it out of your hands. They grab the object and race for the cash register; they never actually touch you.

The physical proximity may cause some people to say this is not OK (I know, I’m arguing with a strawman). But isn’t taking something out of someone’s cart just as bad as this? Taking is taking.

55

Something like this probably fits under a catch all “disorderly conduct” misdemeanor. It’s a pretty petty crime but taking stuff from people’s carts does seem to fit the bill.

56

I wonder whether the value of the item which is taken from the other trolley makes a difference. What if we are talking about really valuable merchandise which is on offer by the store only in limited numbers, maybe an expensive piece of electronics and the shopper who originally put it in his trolley had been waiting in line for hours to take advantage of the special opportunity? Let’s say he took time off from his job and he drove 100 miles to be at the store before it opens.

Would he this unlucky shopper have a (civil) case against the “thief”?

(This, of course, is well beyond the scope of the original question).

57

Yes, you can do something with the items in your shopping cart. For example, you can eat the items.

Many times, I have picked up an item from the deli section at the grocery store and eaten it while I’m shopping, careful to save the price tag to be scanned at the checkout. I see other customers doing this too, especially with slices of pizza. Market of Choice sells pizza by the slice in the deli section, which they put onto a paper plate for you, with a price tag sticker stuck to the bottom of the plate. Just about everyone eats the slice while shopping, scans the bar cod from the bottom of the plate at checkout, then discards the plate. I’ve also done the same thing with bags of cookies: open the bag and eat them while I shop. I’ve even been struck by a sneezing fit while in a store, grabbed a box of tissues off the shelf, opened the box, used a few tissues, then paid for the box on my way out. I’ve never gotten so much as a sideways glance from any store employees for doing any of those things.

One could argue that you actually take possession of the item when you place it into your cart, at which point you incur a debt to the store which must be settled before you can leave the store. This is an implied contract. One aspect of this implied contract is that you are free to change your mind and put a box back on the shelf if you haven’t opened it yet and the debt is erased. Another is that, if you attempt to leave without settling the debt, they can call the police and detain you until the police arrive.

This is similar to what happens at a restaurant. You take possession of the food when it is brought to your plate, at which point you have incurred a debt which must be settled before you leave.

The sticky point that I see about this theory is that it blurs the line between a purchase and a debt, which could have consequences in terms of what forms of payment the seller must accept. As we’ve discussed many times before, when there’s a debt, the seller is obligated to take any form of legal tender you have, from 1 cent coins up to $100 bills. But in the case of a sale, the seller is free to insist on terms such as “no bills larger than $20” or “exact change only”. So what happens if you grab a slice of pizza, eat it, and attempt to pay with a $100 bill, and the cashier refuses to take it?

58

Isn’t it more fun to put items INTO another’s cart?

59

We are talking about Tesco’s here.
Equivalent to Walmart, but with less well-dressed shoppers.

60

I’ve seen people do this, but I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to.

I know enough to say that this isn’t how it works at all. Putting items on the shelf and displaying a price is an “invitation to treat.” Picking up the item and putting it in your cart does not form a contract. For example, if Best Buy mistakenly displays big screen TVs at a price of ten cents, and you put one in your cart and wheel it to the checkout, Best Buy is not under a contractual obligation to honor that mistaken price, even though in your own mind you have accepted the “offer” of a heavily discounted item.