36

Feeding birds gets them to behave different, we all know that. Allegedly, someone feeding crows turned the neighborhood crows to turn them into an active deterrent for thieves - and an alert that an old man fell, but that's not what we want to look into.

Feeding crows can lead to them bringing stuff. Feeding them better allegedly makes them bring the stuff that made you feed them better more. So let's take this pattern as fact:

  • Alice, living in Eastchester/Westchester County/New York feeds the local crows with bread. After one crow brought a 10-dollar bill, she fed them with premium bread. The birds started bringing dollar bills they got from somewhere.
    • Alice believes the bills are found somewhere on the ground or likely lost by people. She pockets them.
  • Bob in the neighboring community has a problem with thinking all bills are dirty, so he washes all dollar bills he gets, writes down their serials, and puts them out to dry on his roof. This is the place the crows get the cash from.
  • Bob notices the thieving birds, follows them, and discovers that Alice is receiving his cash. He calls the police but...

Is Alice in possession of stolen property or at all liable for the wild crow's acts?

Trish
  • 39,097
  • 2
  • 79
  • 156
  • 1
    There's a Donald Duck comic story exactly about this (except that it's trained pigeons). https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/99we5h/comment/e4qwz1f/ – Tomáš Kafka Nov 27 '23 at 10:37
  • 1
    "Theft by finding" – Richard Nov 27 '23 at 18:01
  • 3
    @schrödingcöder it doesn't even have to be Alice instigating it - some monkeys have learned the intrinsic value of different items to humans and barter for their return – roganjosh Nov 28 '23 at 18:02
  • Can you explain any difference between Alice training crows, and Alice using an extending fruit-picker to steal whatever it is?

    If the crows have volition on a human scale, they are guilty at least as accessories with the possible defence that they were incompetent to understand the difference between finding and stealing.

    If the crows have no relevant volition, why should the Court view them as different to Alice's fruit-picker, or any other kind of grab-arm?

     – Robbie Goodwin Nov 29 '23 at 22:12
  • @RobbieGoodwin they are not owned in any way, they were not actively trained to get money, just rewarded for bringing it. It was dumbluck that the crows started bringing cash at the first date, encouraged by the bread getting better. – Trish Nov 30 '23 at 06:05
  • Sorry, Trish. What you're describing is a text-book case of how critters are trained. I for one see no difference between the simple fact and any intent to use or inflict that method on the critters. How could that matter? Further, this last above is the first and only mention here any 'owning.' Where does that come from, please? – Robbie Goodwin Dec 01 '23 at 20:33
  • @RobbieGoodwin "the local crows" implies wild animals. – Trish Dec 01 '23 at 23:29
  • 'The local…' does imply wild, not owned crows. How could it matter whether you allure or attract, beguile, bewitch or cajole, entice, induce or inveigle, lead, lure or somehow seduce, teach or tempt, trained, trick or in any other way persuade a bird, fox, squirrel or any other wild critter to approach your feeding table or even to eat out of your hand?

    More…

     – Robbie Goodwin Dec 02 '23 at 18:42
  • Further… From the other side, if anything fitting any of those words 'gets' people to a place where bears or boars or bulls, crocodiles, snakes or snarks kill them, do you suppose the judge will accept the actual killer being a wild animal as any kind of defence?

    Why not rely on the bullet being nothing but a bit of metal, or the pistol an inanimate mechanism?

    Back at the police station you might try building similar, purely semantic defenses on the words 'proxy' and even 'using' but still, you might come up against literate cops and lawyers, juries and judges.

     – Robbie Goodwin Dec 02 '23 at 18:58

2 Answers2

35

This answer assumes no further intention than is disclosed in the question. If Alice had heightened or more precise intentions, that would change the analysis and could transform the scenario to be criminal.

The cash is Bob's

The common law position is that the finder of a chattel acquires a title that is good against the entire world except for the true owner.

There is a large body of case law establishing what it means to abandon, and placing things on one's own roof for a short duration is clearly not abandonment. Given that Bob has not abandoned the cash, Bob is still the true owner of the cash.

Alice has converted it

The property has been "converted" by Alice (to some extent accidentally, but conversion can be largely accidental).

An action for conversion does not rest on knowledge or intent of the defendant. The act constituting "conversion" must be an intentional act, but does not require wrongful intent, and is not excused by care, good faith, or lack of knowledge.

(Wikipedia:Conversion, citing case law from around the U.S.)

The "intention" required by Alice is simply the intention to have this cash once the bird brings it to her. To have converted it, she does not need to have intended that it come from a true owner. She does not need to know that there even is a true owner. She can even have the belief that it was mislaid or abandoned property. As long as Alice intends to have the cash, and that cash happens to be someone else's, this is conversion.

That might seem harsh, but conversion does not have a high stigma. It is recognized that it can be "accidental" in the sense of your hypothetical. And the remedy for accidental conversion is mild: return of the property or its value.

Bob has a right to have it returned

If all of the facts in the hypothetical are proved, Bob would have the remedy of replevin or detinue available which would result in the cash or its value being returned to him.

Jen
  • 54,294
  • 5
  • 110
  • 242
  • What happens if Alice plays dumb and says that she doesn't know why the crows were bringing her free cash? – user57467 Nov 26 '23 at 15:22
  • 8
    So essentially the crow’s involvement is irrelevant, right? Alice might have as well found the money in the street. – schrödingcöder Nov 26 '23 at 15:38
  • 7
    @user57467 What in this answer do you interpret as hinging on Alice admitting intent to steal the cash? – Sneftel Nov 26 '23 at 19:03
  • 1
    So it doesn't make any difference what agent is being trained to find and take the property? Fictionally, Fagin used children. – Weather Vane Nov 26 '23 at 19:15
  • 12
    Hypothetical? Who said it's hypothetical? :) – osiris Nov 26 '23 at 22:05
  • Is there any name used to refer to the concept articulated by your first paragraph? – TylerDurden Nov 27 '23 at 01:26
  • 1
    Would it not be return of the goods, plus costs if following the English rule? – TylerDurden Nov 27 '23 at 01:32
  • 1
    I'm torn on the ethics of this. Alice has invested enough time and effort training crows (can't be pleasant work), that in a sense she has earned it. Plus, who says she instructed them to be thieves? Maybe she meant for them to work as street performers... let's give her the benefit of the doubt. Plus, the whole fiasco could raise public awareness of animal intelligence. So it's not all bad. On the other hand, I'm not sure I want to have to fear getting held up by aggro crows on my commute. Maybe I can buy them off with better bread and make 'em turn on Alice... escalates to crow gang warfare. – Mentalist Nov 27 '23 at 07:40
  • 3
    @schrödingcöder This answer works on the basis that Alice is the 'finder of a chattel'. But if Alice entered Bob's garden, climbed on his roof and took the money, perhaps she would now additionally be committing various criminal acts. So perhaps the crow is relevant in turning this situation from criminal into civil? I'm not sure where Alice would stand if she got a leaf blower and blew the cash off the roof and picked it up from the street though. Presumably theft but not trespass. – niemiro Nov 27 '23 at 11:19
  • 9
    @Mentalist Alice's investment of time and effort does not make the money hers. It takes time and effort to become a good pickpocket or safe cracker, but that doesn't mean that money obtained from using those skill is therefore yours. – R.M. Nov 27 '23 at 12:54
  • @r.m. if someone pays you with stolen money, it's still your money. The crows are paying Alice for her work. Checkmate. – DonQuiKong Nov 27 '23 at 13:02
  • 2
    …a "checkmate" that assumes law recognizes that crows can perform a buying act. The UCC specifically uses "person" to define the act of buying. That is: “an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, limited liability company, association, joint venture, government, governmental subdivision, agency, or instrumentality, public corporation, or any other legal or commercial entity”. That list does not include crows. – spectras Nov 27 '23 at 13:36
  • 6
    @spectras: What if the crows form a caw-poration? – psmears Nov 27 '23 at 15:46
  • 4
    @DonQuiKong in the US, if someone pays you with stolen money, the police can absolutely confiscate the money and return it to the rightful owner. Presuming the transaction you were paid for wasn't illegal, you could then file a civil suit against the person whom paid you with stolen money, but you would not be keeping stolen money. – Pyrotechnical Nov 27 '23 at 19:31
  • @pyrotechnical then let's use turkeys instead – DonQuiKong Nov 27 '23 at 21:41
  • Would is be correct to say that if Alice accepts a bill brought to her by a crow, she may have done something wrong (depending on whether it was abandoned on the street or drying on Bob's roof), and she has no way of knowing? Or is Alice is entitled to use any cash brought to her by the crows, but she must repay Bob if it is later discovered that the cash was originally his? Or is the distinction between my two interpretations a purely moral one, with no legal difference? – The Guy with The Hat Nov 28 '23 at 01:37
  • 1
    This is a great answer within the confines of the concept of the money being "found" by Alice, but a lot rests on this. Aren't there quite a few ways this interpretation would collapse? I assume it wouldn't be "found" if Alice lifted the bills from Bob's roof herself with a telescopic claw. Would there be a difference in law if she trained a crow to do the same? What if she trained the crow to only search private residences or could otherwise be certain that prior to the crow's intervention the bill was easily linked to its true owner, but this link destroyed by the crow's trained actions? – Will Nov 28 '23 at 17:25
4

Alice believes the bills are found somewhere on the ground or likely lost by people. She pockets them.

The question seems to assume this is legal. Chapter 41 Section 252 of the laws of New York states that you have 10 days to return it or report it to the authorities or you could be liable for a fine and/or jail time. That applies if the property is worth $20 or more, and I would argue multiple amounts 'found' this same way should be totaled for the purposes of the law.

Jason Goemaat
  • 711
  • 4
  • 6
  • 6
    I'm not coivinced by your totaling opinion. So every day you find a $1 bill on the street. If you achieve this for 3 weeks, you have to turn it into the police? – Barmar Nov 28 '23 at 05:09
  • 2
    I doubt it. I was more talking about sitting on your balcony as the you feed the crow bread and it brings you a $5 bill four times for four pieces of bread. I bet they could make that fly if they discovered your scheme and wanted to prosecute under that statute. – Jason Goemaat Nov 28 '23 at 14:09
  • I have a hard time believing that someone could be considered liable for actions taken by random birds that happen to work in their favor. Maybe if someone had a pet bird that they'd purposely trained to do their dirty work. – Barmar Nov 29 '23 at 02:51
  • 2
    The statute deals with found money. If a $20 bill floated down to your 5th floor apartment balcony after blowing in the wind, it would apply to that as well. "Finders keepers" is a children's saying, but it's not the law. And if you're found to be feeding a bird that keeps bringing you cash, I don't really think it would be too hard for a jury to find that it was a scheme you intended and rise to the level of outright theft. More likely than someone drying his money on the roof would be the birds getting the money from tips left on tables on a restaurant's patio. – Jason Goemaat Nov 29 '23 at 03:14