SUBSEQUENT POSSESSION:

ACQUISITION BY FIND
McAvoy v. Medina

1. NAME OF CASE: McAvoy v. Medina

2. CITATION: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, 1866

93 Mass (11 Allen) 548

3. PARTIES: McAvoy/plaintiff/appeallee/barber
Medina/defendant/appeallant/customer

4. OBJECTIVES: Plaintiff seeks to recover the sum of money within the contents of a purse he
found in defendant’s shop. Defendant seeks to maintain claim over the purse found in his shop.

5. LEGAL THEORIES: Plaintiff claims ownership over the finding because its real owner was never
identified. Defendant claims ownership over the finding because it was intentionally placed in his shop
on a table top by a customer.

6. PROCEDURAL HISTORY: Lower court entered judgment in favor or defendant. Plaintiff appeals.

7. FACTS: Plaintiff found purse on top of a table in the defendant’s shop. Plaintiff brought find to
defendant’s attention, and defendant counted the money the purse contained. Plaintiff left purse with
defendant to find the true owner of the purse and after no identification of the true owner, the plaintiff
asserted ownership of the purse and made demands for the money found in it.

8. ISSUE: Is property placed intentionally in a shop but accidently left in the shop considered lost
property, and therefore places claim of the property with the finder above all others except for the real
owner? MISLAID PROPERTY – Shop owner have right to property mislaid in his store?

1 sentence questions: answerable yes or no

Use most relevant relationship
D- locus in quo
P –finder
Is the finder of mislaid property discovered in a public shop entitled to it against the shop owner?
Lost: unintentionally parted with
Mislaid :voluntarily placed, inadvertently forgotten

9. HOLDING: No

10. JUDGEMENT: Defendant has claim to the purse and its contents until real owner is identified.

11. REASONING: The real owner of the property intentionally placed the purse in the shop and accidently
left it there, making it mislaid property, not lost property. Mislaid property gives claim to the owner of
where it was intentionally placed, not to the finder. Therefore the defendant was claim to the purse over
 all others except for the real owner if identified.

12. COMMENTS:
Transient: passing away with time; not permanent; temporary
Exceptions: a formal objection or reservation to court action or opinion in the course of a trial
*The dominant concern of the law of finders – to protect true owners – drops out in the case of
abandoned property, because the true owner has renounced any claim, but the interests of the owner of
the place of the find remain.

Similar to any of the previous cases?

- Bridges v. Hawkesworth
- Mislaid v. lost

Does distention between lost and mislaid matter?

Hypothetical:

Lady tripped over display at Walmart – tennis bracelet came out. Dorien found it. Who prevails?

Parties – OLIQ v. Finder

Thing – bracelet

Classify the property – lost or mislaid? On the floor – lost

Lost – finder (dorien) gets it

Mislaid – OLIQ (walmart)

Public or Private? Public place – finder; private place – OLIQ

found bracelet on the corner of the counter – mislaid – OLIQ

found on floor – lost – finder

*do you think it makes any sense – this whole lost and mislaid thing?