At your service. 
That was a more a response to the suggestion of 'shrooms in the pizza.
In any case, if I were the employer, both the thief and the person leaving traps would be on thin ice.
I agree. This could be a simple mistake.
Booby trapping food is a very bad idea. It is likely illegal, and if someone ate it by mistake, you’d feel bad.
I tend to disagree. This is the world where if you don’t put up a kid-proof fence around your swimming pool, and a trespassing neighbor falls in it and drowns, YOU can be responsible because you have created a dangerous situation.
Personally, I think that according to the law, all you would have to do is knowingly engage in a behavior that could reasonably be expected to cause harm to someone. Poisoning food is certainly one of those things. I’ll wait for a lawyer to back me up on that, though, before I go making positive assertions.
So what would happen if say the suspected thief had an allergy to peanuts or shellfish and I put them in my food (a food doesn’t normally contain them) and said thief eats it? Could I still be held liable for anything?
I don’t know, that’s why I said I’ll wait for a real lawyer to weigh in before I go spouting off.
Peanuts and shellfish are something that people would normally eat and aren’t booby-trapped food. I would expect anyone with those sorts of allergies would be very careful about what foods they ate (and they probably don’t even store them in a communal fridge for that reason), so I don’t think it could be assumed that I could have reasonably expected it to cause harm to someone else.
As opposed to booby-trapping food, which is only done for the express purpose of harming another individual, the same way booby-trapping your home is not legal.
We’ve gone from Ex-Lax, to hazardous materials, to poison. We’re talking about laxatives here. No one has suggested poisoning anyone.
However, I have plants in my yard that are poisonous. If someone trespasses, plucks a castor bean, and gets poisoned, is it my fault?
If you steal something sharp, don’t piss and moan if you get cut.
Excellent question. I have a friend out in eastern PA who had a “poisonous plant garden” in the front of his veterinary practice. It was fenced off and there were signs. He eventually replaced it with sod over the concern his insurer had about the whole idea.
In the Age of Sail, minor theft on board ship in the Royal Navy was punished by forcing the guilty party to run the gauntlet. His shipmates would arm themselves with knotted cords and lash the bejesus out of the guy. I think something similar would be appropriate for lunch thefts.
This really happened…
there were roughly 150 workers where I worked, many brought lunch and put it in this huge double door fridge. Often they would leave half open cans of pop, juice, for their next break.
Someone once noticed that their opened coke had been drunk, and to add insult to injury, it had been replaced in the fridge empty.
So they wrote a note:
"Hi, to the anonymous person who finished and replaced my Coke. Please be aware that my Herpes and Hep C are currently contagious, and you should seek medical attention. signed “anonymous”
It was funny, but managment decided that no opened containers could be left if the fridge after that.
regards
FML
I did this when I lived in the dorm last year and didn’t have a fridge in my room. Someone ripped open my bag and took my yogurt and milk. Some people are just jerks.
To expand on my point, diarrhea may not be an excessive punishment for a food thief, and I don’t know if I were on a jury that I would convict the adder for assault. What I am saying is that an assault conviction is a real possibility.
The stuff that used to be the active ingreient in Ex-lax has been known to kill some dudes. And, *intent *is important too.
Then, I submit that no prosecution would occur. Who has suggested that anyone *intended *to kill anyone? For that matter, all sorts of stuff has killed some dudes. Am I to limit my lunch to only those things that have never killed anyone?
I just can’t imagine any of this happening in the real world. Say I spike my YooHoo with Ex-Lax. Someone steals my lunch, and is digestively distressed as a result. How, exactly, will I be charged? The evidence is gone. The complainant will have to admit to being a thief. So what does he do, go to management and say “I stole Contra’s lunch and then I shit my pants”? Do you seriously, in your heart of hearts, see an assault charge resulting?
Man, where are **Loach **and Happy Scrappy when you need 'em?
I have a similar problem. My BOSS is using my stuff. I’m the organic all natural person at work and though the company provides things like coffee and cream, I need soy milk. I bring a big carton and use it all week with more than just coffee. I have a co-worker who uses it too and we alternate bringing it in. But one of the lawyers in our office (guess he isn’t officially my boss, but my superior) uses is all the time without asking. Today he reached in to my co-workers grocery bag siting on the counter and opened it up (brand new carton) and poured it in his coffee!!!
I just don’t know how to approach this. When is it ever okay to reach into someone else’s lunch bag for ANYTHING without asking??
If somebody stole my food and I found out who it was, I would just steal and eat his food. See how he likes it. That way everyone is happy and I get to try some different food too.
Now, for other people, I think he should have to write a letter of apology. Repeated offenses leading to termination.
Actually, at the bank where I worked, a little outfit called Chase Manhattan, the dye packs also emitted tear gas. According to our orientation security briefing, “the typical scenario is we find the perp 15 feet from the exit, clawing at his eyes.”
Lest you think this is an isolated policy, an FBI website suggests that dye/tear gas combo is typical:
“Bank dye packs contain dye to stain money and clothing and tear gas to disorient a robber.”
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/handbook/intro4.htm