[darrellsilver]

This quote is fantastic:

> In 1992, Roy Hall, a 46-year-old minister, bought a royal blue Hickey-Freeman jacket at Unclaimed Baggage. When he took it home, he noticed the name “Whitey Ford” — a Hall of Fame pitcher for the Yankees — written inside of it. Informed of the find, Ford asked for his jacket back; Hall decided to keep it.

Who cares if it’s true; the minister is like, “return a lost article to its rightful owner? Nah.”

[voisin]

“Possession is 9/10th the law” has a lot of truth to it. The liability here should rest with the airline as bailee, but they disclaim liability beyond some trivial amount, so the bailor (traveller) is taking a risk by failing to “manifest the desire to exclude others” without adequate protection.

[sukilot]

What? The airline may not be liable, but the minister certainly is. Retaining property clearly owned by someone else (by label and by spoken affirmation) is theft pure and simple.

[voisin]

Unfortunately this is not correct. It isn’t legally theft (though morally it surely isn’t the right thing to do). Theft implies someone was “manifesting the desire to exclude others” and someone else took it anyways. Once you hand over your luggage, you have a contract with the airline whereby you’ve waived many of your rights and limited the few that remain. Once the luggage goes missing, you are entitled only to those limited rights under your contract with the airline. The newly found luggage can be sold as unowned goods.

There’s centuries of common law that back this up. It sucks, yes.

[guenthert]

> Theft implies someone was “manifesting the desire to exclude others”.

That can't be the whole story though. You can't keep stolen property, even if you bought it from a 3rd party and were under the impression that the transaction was legal. Lost&found might not be stolen, but if the airline 'finds it' without the intention to return it, it's not that far off.

[listenallyall]

Surely an urban legend. I'm expected to believe Mr Hall wrote to Mr Ford (1992 was pre-email, pre-internet, pre-social media) to inform him that he'd found his jacket, but then refused to return it? I mean, who else but Mr Hall himself could have "informed" Ford? And how did the luggage store become aware of any of this, who told them?

In fact, given the improvements in luggage tracking, in recent years, I'd bet "Unclaimed Luggage" is mostly a lie as well. My guess is that a very small percentage of the store's inventory comes from lost airline luggage these days. Most likely, it's stuff left behind at hotels, abandoned storage units, "imperfect" textiles and goods, pawn store inventories, police confiscations, bankruptcy auctions, even lost/overboard shipping containers.

[crazygringo]

To be fair, if the airline has already recompensed you for your lost luggage, then you no longer have a right to it. Once you take the money, you're no longer the rightful owner. :)

[WrtCdEvrydy]

To be honest, if I paid for a jacket, I'd probably ask that person to pay me for the money I spent...

[johnchristopher]

Then you become a link in the reselling of stolen goods (actual wording and consequences may vary depending on where you live).

edit: I'd appreciate some explaining regarding the downvotes, is someone expecting me to cite the law ?

[quickthrowman]

Yes, if you claim it was ‘stolen’, the burden of proof is you to provide proof that the law considers the property stolen rather than forfeited (if you want to avoid downvotes, that is) FWIW, I didn’t downvote you.

There’s an entirely separate moral/ethical argument aside from the legal one where one may decide they should return it based on their own morals/ethics.

[johnchristopher]

I don't get it. The owner of the jacket is a jacket short, he finds out someone has it and that person doesn't give it back ? Not the first time to happen, laws have already dealt with things like that.

What I wrote is not up to debate, it's common in the law in the US and in most of Europe (AFAICT).

You can debate the finer points (that's why I wrote “actual wording and consequences may vary depending on where you live”) but the idea is still the same. Don't mess with stolen stuff.

Eg: In Scotland, when goods are stolen, the person who originally owned them is still the legal owner. If you discover you've bought stolen goods you should stop using them immediately. If you know who the legal owner of the goods is you should inform them that you have their goods and let them take them away. If you don’t give them back and the owner finds out you have them, the owner can apply for a court order to make you return the goods.

Verbatim: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/scotland/consumer/somethin...

We could debate the moral/ethical argument but I purposely didn't take that approach.

edit: ah, I see, I didn't understand why you used the phrasing “Yes, if you claim it was ‘stolen’,” and thought it was a universal “you” but you were talking about the very specifics of that case. I don't know why, I got on the macro level too soon.

Of course, I see, we now have to check what the law says or allows for that company about unclaimed luggage and the best efforts the company made to find the rightful owner before being granted ownership of the jacket.

[test48782]

I think people are down voting because they disagree in this instance.

IMO, your comment contributes to the topic of discussion.

[valand]

HN needs to repair its flag mechanism

[Jedd]

I've been told that without religion we'd have no morals.

[e40]

Yes it’s ironic, that as an atheist, I wouldn’t have done what that minister did.

[NikolaNovak]

Ditto; the statement falls apart RAPIDLY upon about 12 seconds examination.

Easiest entries are:

1. The extremely diverse morals, frameworks, ethics, and actions different people draw from same source materials.

2. The multitude of ethical frameworks and moral people without religious roots