4 ms·

But, why not? Let's say a (regular) scooter or even bicycle has been sitting on the sidewalk for a couple of days. Is it illegal for me to consider it abandoned

by jzl 8y ago

But, why not? Let's say a (regular) scooter or even bicycle has been sitting on the sidewalk for a couple of days. Is it illegal for me to consider it abandoned and just take it? Consider the case of an item that actually is abandoned. Don't property owners have some amount of legal responsibility to not leave an item in public unlocked? Granted, "unlocked" might be the key. You can't ride a Bird scooter without the app. But it isn't exactly locked in the same way as a bicycle. [Downvoters: I'm not saying that I think I should be able to grab a Bird off the street, I just want to hear the legal explanation of how this works.]

rebuilder 8y ago
I think this would be a jurisdiction-specific question. Where I live, you are not entitled to just keep found items, but should return them to lost and found instead.
e1ven 8y ago
Abandoned property laws vary by jurisdiction. Typically they involve reporting it to the police/authorities.
chipotle_coyote 8y ago
Yes, it is illegal for you to consider it abandoned. In the US, at least, "abandoned" has a specific legal meaning which involves intent: "Abandoned property refers to any personal property left by an owner who has intentionally relinquished all rights to its control. When property is intentionally abandoned, it belongs to no one until it is found and when it is found, the title (ownership) transfers to whoever finds it and possesses it with the intent to take ownership." https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/abandoned-personal-property.html https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/abandoned-per... Property owners don't have any legal responsibility not to leave an item in public unlocked. That might be careless, but it's not illegal.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  In the US, at least, what constitutes "abandoned" property differs from state to state and even within the states at the county/municipality level. If Bird leaves a scooter in the road, for someone else to use, they have relinquished the right to control the device, and it is thus abandoned; the alternative is that they are deliberately littering or committing various other property infractions or misdemeanors.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > If Bird leaves a scooter in the road, for someone else to use, they have relinquished the right to control the device, and it is thus abandoned No, if they are charging use fees, offering money for people to choose charge them, etc., they have not relinquished all rights to control. > the alternative is that they are deliberately littering or committing various other property infractions or misdemeanors. That's a big false dichotomy.
    - Latteland 8y ago
      You can argue that, but you can't just go around stealing things that are sitting on the street or sidewalk. Can you take the doormat outside a door on a building? Or take a sign on the sidewalk? No. Take a sign that the city has left just screwed into a metal pole?
  - bdowling 8y ago
    Bird clearly maintains the right to control the device because it unlocks the scooter to be used by customers and causes a light to blink so it can be found by "chargers" at the end of the day. Regarding statutory violations, first of all Bird is probably not littering because the scooters are (arguably) not trash. Second, where the scooters are impounded by cities and other municipalities, it is for parking violations or other statutes against them. As a private citizen, you would have no more right to take their scooter than you would to take my car that was illegally parked.
jalgos_eminator 8y ago
If its not yours, you can't take possession of it. Just because it is currently resting on a sidewalk doesn't mean that it is any less the property of someone. Besides, most cities have a formal process to determine if a vehicle really is abandoned. My neighbor has a sign on the dash of his van explaining that it is in working condition, is able to be moved, and is definitely not abandoned. Obviously he got complaints from other neighbors in the past about it.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  Cars are very different from scooters; not in the least because cars are individually identified and licensed.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    What nonsense is this? A license plate affects ownership law? The scooters can be individually identified too.
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      The point was that leaving a vehicle in a parking space is not an indicator of abandonment because ownership of a vehicle is based on registration, not physical possession. The same is not true of scooters, and that makes all the difference.
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        Registration is for tracking ownership, paperwork that is filed up to a month after ownership changes. It doesn't create ownership.
throwaway98434 8y ago
Generally speaking theft requires an intent to deprive an owner of property. It's a crime to take my bike intending to deprive me of it, but it's not a crime to take my bike while attempting to return it to me. Property owners do not have any obligation to lock up their items. There are sometimes very specific laws regarding found property when the owner cannot be located, generally these involve turning the property over to the state first.
cortesoft 8y ago
It depends on the jurisdiction, but a lot of places have laws around found property... often a finder would have rights to truly abandoned property, but there are usually laws in place that establish a procedure for determining if something is truly abandoned or just lost/misplaced/stolen. Usually that process involves turning the property in to the government, and waiting some period of time for the original owner to claim it. If it is not claimed, it would become yours. I don't know of any law that requires property on public space to be locked. There may be laws saying you can't leave property in public for more than a certain amount of time, but I am pretty sure none of those would allow anyone to just take the property. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/lost_property https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/lost_property https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/abandoned_property https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/abandoned_property
- grkvlt 8y ago
  In the UK there is the crime of 'Theft by finding' [0] when you find something you think is abandoned and take it, but do not do anything to determine if it really was abandoned, as opposed to lost, unattended, etc. The Wikipedia article suggests similar offences exist elsewhere... 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft_by_finding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft_by_finding
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Let's say a (regular) scooter or even bicycle has been sitting on the sidewalk for a couple of days. Is it illegal for me to consider it abandoned and just take it? In California, if you find it and choose to take charge of it, you become a depositary for the legal owner. Additionally, if it is worth $100+, and you can't locate and return it to the owner within a reasonable period, you are required to turn it into the police or sheriff depending on the jurisdiction in which it was found. It may become yours if the owner doesn't claim it from the police/sheriff within 90 days, with some additional requirements if it is worth more than $250. If it was intentionally abandoned by the owner this doesn't apply. EDIT: Source, Civil Code § 2080 et seq..
- gamblor956 8y ago
  The legal argument of course is that Bird has intentionally abandoned their scooters in the public way, and this is the general consensus of my many friends in the local DA offices. (Translation: they don't think it's a crime and they won't prosecute any such cases even if for some reason someone is ticketed or arrested for it.)
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > The legal argument of course is that Bird has intentionally abandoned their scooters in the public way, and this is the general consensus of my many friends in the local DA offices. (Translation: they don't think it's a crime and they won't prosecute any such cases even if for some reason someone is ticketed or arrested for it.) They clearly haven't abandoned them as that applies generally to property; if you are in fact charging rental fees, you haven't intentionally relinquished the right to control something, as you are exercising that right by charging others for the right to temporarily exercise some portion of it. There may be rules regarding public rights of way which impact this, though the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has already rejected the claim that property left unattended on a public sidewalk is therefore abandoned and subject to deprivation when the City of Los Angeles used that as an excuse to take the goods belonging to the homeless without due process, so I think what is really going on in those DAs offices is people have made the decision “we don't like what Bird is doing so we aren't going to enforce the law when people commit crimes against them.” https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1611251.html https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1611251.html
rdiddly 8y ago
On the one hand you have property rights, which some siblings of my current comment argue are inalienable concerning the scooter. "Don't touch my stuff!" On the other hand you have the ground occupied by or encumbered by said property, which is also property, owned by somebody, often the public, and likely intended for some other purpose besides storing your property. "Don't make your stuff our problem!" Different places balance the two interests in different ways. Most provide some legal framework or mechanism by which your private property rights can become subordinate to public property rights, i.e. your property is declared abandoned, or simply seized based on a nuisance or safety argument.
arkades 8y ago
The short version is: Every state has regulations on the exact process by which private individuals can be deprived of their property rights due to "abandonment." Not a single one of those regulations is as straight-forward as "finders keepers."

by jzl 8y ago

rebuilder 8y ago

I think this would be a jurisdiction-specific question. Where I live, you are not entitled to just keep found items, but should return them to lost and found instead.

e1ven 8y ago

Abandoned property laws vary by jurisdiction. Typically they involve reporting it to the police/authorities.

chipotle_coyote 8y ago

Yes, it is illegal for you to consider it abandoned. In the US, at least, "abandoned" has a specific legal meaning which involves intent: "Abandoned property refers to any personal property left by an owner who has intentionally relinquished all rights to its control. When property is intentionally abandoned, it belongs to no one until it is found and when it is found, the title (ownership) transfers to whoever finds it and possesses it with the intent to take ownership." https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/abandoned-personal-property.html https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/abandoned-per... Property owners don't have any legal responsibility not to leave an item in public unlocked. That might be careless, but it's not illegal.

gamblor956 8y ago
In the US, at least, what constitutes "abandoned" property differs from state to state and even within the states at the county/municipality level. If Bird leaves a scooter in the road, for someone else to use, they have relinquished the right to control the device, and it is thus abandoned; the alternative is that they are deliberately littering or committing various other property infractions or misdemeanors.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > If Bird leaves a scooter in the road, for someone else to use, they have relinquished the right to control the device, and it is thus abandoned No, if they are charging use fees, offering money for people to choose charge them, etc., they have not relinquished all rights to control. > the alternative is that they are deliberately littering or committing various other property infractions or misdemeanors. That's a big false dichotomy.
  - Latteland 8y ago
    You can argue that, but you can't just go around stealing things that are sitting on the street or sidewalk. Can you take the doormat outside a door on a building? Or take a sign on the sidewalk? No. Take a sign that the city has left just screwed into a metal pole?
- bdowling 8y ago
  Bird clearly maintains the right to control the device because it unlocks the scooter to be used by customers and causes a light to blink so it can be found by "chargers" at the end of the day. Regarding statutory violations, first of all Bird is probably not littering because the scooters are (arguably) not trash. Second, where the scooters are impounded by cities and other municipalities, it is for parking violations or other statutes against them. As a private citizen, you would have no more right to take their scooter than you would to take my car that was illegally parked.

jalgos_eminator 8y ago

If its not yours, you can't take possession of it. Just because it is currently resting on a sidewalk doesn't mean that it is any less the property of someone. Besides, most cities have a formal process to determine if a vehicle really is abandoned. My neighbor has a sign on the dash of his van explaining that it is in working condition, is able to be moved, and is definitely not abandoned. Obviously he got complaints from other neighbors in the past about it.

gamblor956 8y ago
Cars are very different from scooters; not in the least because cars are individually identified and licensed.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  What nonsense is this? A license plate affects ownership law? The scooters can be individually identified too.
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    The point was that leaving a vehicle in a parking space is not an indicator of abandonment because ownership of a vehicle is based on registration, not physical possession. The same is not true of scooters, and that makes all the difference.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      Registration is for tracking ownership, paperwork that is filed up to a month after ownership changes. It doesn't create ownership.

throwaway98434 8y ago

Generally speaking theft requires an intent to deprive an owner of property. It's a crime to take my bike intending to deprive me of it, but it's not a crime to take my bike while attempting to return it to me. Property owners do not have any obligation to lock up their items. There are sometimes very specific laws regarding found property when the owner cannot be located, generally these involve turning the property over to the state first.

cortesoft 8y ago

It depends on the jurisdiction, but a lot of places have laws around found property... often a finder would have rights to truly abandoned property, but there are usually laws in place that establish a procedure for determining if something is truly abandoned or just lost/misplaced/stolen. Usually that process involves turning the property in to the government, and waiting some period of time for the original owner to claim it. If it is not claimed, it would become yours. I don't know of any law that requires property on public space to be locked. There may be laws saying you can't leave property in public for more than a certain amount of time, but I am pretty sure none of those would allow anyone to just take the property. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/lost_property https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/lost_property https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/abandoned_property https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/abandoned_property

grkvlt 8y ago
In the UK there is the crime of 'Theft by finding' [0] when you find something you think is abandoned and take it, but do not do anything to determine if it really was abandoned, as opposed to lost, unattended, etc. The Wikipedia article suggests similar offences exist elsewhere... 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft_by_finding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft_by_finding

dragonwriter 8y ago

> Let's say a (regular) scooter or even bicycle has been sitting on the sidewalk for a couple of days. Is it illegal for me to consider it abandoned and just take it? In California, if you find it and choose to take charge of it, you become a depositary for the legal owner. Additionally, if it is worth $100+, and you can't locate and return it to the owner within a reasonable period, you are required to turn it into the police or sheriff depending on the jurisdiction in which it was found. It may become yours if the owner doesn't claim it from the police/sheriff within 90 days, with some additional requirements if it is worth more than $250. If it was intentionally abandoned by the owner this doesn't apply. EDIT: Source, Civil Code § 2080 et seq..

gamblor956 8y ago
The legal argument of course is that Bird has intentionally abandoned their scooters in the public way, and this is the general consensus of my many friends in the local DA offices. (Translation: they don't think it's a crime and they won't prosecute any such cases even if for some reason someone is ticketed or arrested for it.)
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > The legal argument of course is that Bird has intentionally abandoned their scooters in the public way, and this is the general consensus of my many friends in the local DA offices. (Translation: they don't think it's a crime and they won't prosecute any such cases even if for some reason someone is ticketed or arrested for it.) They clearly haven't abandoned them as that applies generally to property; if you are in fact charging rental fees, you haven't intentionally relinquished the right to control something, as you are exercising that right by charging others for the right to temporarily exercise some portion of it. There may be rules regarding public rights of way which impact this, though the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has already rejected the claim that property left unattended on a public sidewalk is therefore abandoned and subject to deprivation when the City of Los Angeles used that as an excuse to take the goods belonging to the homeless without due process, so I think what is really going on in those DAs offices is people have made the decision “we don't like what Bird is doing so we aren't going to enforce the law when people commit crimes against them.” https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1611251.html https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1611251.html

rdiddly 8y ago

On the one hand you have property rights, which some siblings of my current comment argue are inalienable concerning the scooter. "Don't touch my stuff!" On the other hand you have the ground occupied by or encumbered by said property, which is also property, owned by somebody, often the public, and likely intended for some other purpose besides storing your property. "Don't make your stuff our problem!" Different places balance the two interests in different ways. Most provide some legal framework or mechanism by which your private property rights can become subordinate to public property rights, i.e. your property is declared abandoned, or simply seized based on a nuisance or safety argument.

arkades 8y ago

The short version is: Every state has regulations on the exact process by which private individuals can be deprived of their property rights due to "abandonment." Not a single one of those regulations is as straight-forward as "finders keepers."