The Case of the Missing Wine

[The Brain]

I don't have a major problem with Otto's handling of the situation. ClownEx fucked up badly, Otto is not their fucking servant.

[Martinus]

Isn't he Catholic though?

I think he might be.  Catholics have mother figure issues though, not father figure issues.

I don't agree. Both Jews and Catholics have both types of issues. It's always an overprotective mother and a distant father - both judging you.

[grumbler]

I'm not sure that he's legally correct, though.  Legally, if a business ships something to you that you didn't order, you're entitled to consider it a gift and keep it without any obligation to pay for it.  But in this case, the wine wasn't shipped to him, but rather to the person that ordered it, and was simply misdelivered.  I'm not sure that's the same thing legally--in fact, I'm fairly sure it's not.

I yield to your logic and knowledge, and retract my statement.

[OttoVonBismarck]

My take on it was I was justified in eventually drinking the two bottles, but not justified in lying when FedEx and the old man showed up.

The way I see it, some of you are disregarding my rights as property owner. No one has the right to put refuse on my property against my will. A package I did not order and did not want on my property, I believe legally would be no different than if a neighbor threw a bag of trash in my yard. I do not believe there is any legal requirement of care for the refuse, and I would have been justified in dumping the entire wine box in the trash on day one.

It was not found in a public place, and thus not akin to "found money" out in public or other such, where you have a duty to turn it over to a police station.

Legally I would view this wine the same as I would a neighbor's apple tree where the branches hang over my yard and some of the apples fall into my yard. In that scenario who has legal claim to those apples? Can I eat them, or no? Do I have to give my neighbor traverse through my property to collect them? Am I required to leave them on my yard until my neighbor feels like collecting them?

I don't know the answers to those questions legally, but morally I feel like consumables that fall into my property are by right mine, regardless of what the law says.

Morally I felt bad when the old man showed up, but at that point I had 10 bottles of unboxed wine, and didn't want to admit I was the sort to break open a misdelivered wine box and start drinking the bottles.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I had a package delivered to me by mistake. Fedex told me to fuck off, and to contact the seller or locate the rightful owner if I cared that much.  I managed to find a number for the seller and finally found the owner who was in the same building.  They are a bunch of jagoffs.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I've dealt with FedEx before and it's usually been fine, I think situations like this "short-circuit" how their whole system works. For example if you have a FedEx account and schedule a (paid) package pickup, they come by reliably and pick up whatever you've paid them to pickup. I think when done this way it goes into their system and becomes automatically a part of the driver's route for that day, so gets handled well.

But something like this, there is no payment for FedEx involved and it isn't going through their normal shipment request system. So you literally have to have someone contact a driver who will be in that area, and actually add a pick up to his route. A pick up that he won't be able to scan in because there will be no (valid) FedEx shipping label (since the one on the package already delivered is an old/used one.)

On top of all of that, it's my understanding that UPS drivers are all UPS employees. FedEx drivers though, I believe are more like franchisees. They essentially "buy into" an area and get to run routes in that area, and are required to pay for their own vehicles and etc. There's a FedEx driver who lives on the road that leads to my wife's parent's house and his FedEx truck is always parked in his driveway when he's not working. So it could also be that a "delivery fix" like this may be outside of what the driver "has" to do, and it's more like a FedEx dispatcher can call and sorta nag him to do it, but it's not really part of his route responsibility or on his route schedule as a delivery/pickup so instead of dealing with it promptly he just deals with it "when he feels like it."

[sbr]

Where did you get the idea of the FedEx drivers as franchisees?  I worked for FedEx as a temp ~20 years ago and I am almost certain that was not the case then.

[Martinus]

My take on it was I was justified in eventually drinking the two bottles, but not justified in lying when FedEx and the old man showed up.

The way I see it, some of you are disregarding my rights as property owner. No one has the right to put refuse on my property against my will. A package I did not order and did not want on my property, I believe legally would be no different than if a neighbor threw a bag of trash in my yard. I do not believe there is any legal requirement of care for the refuse, and I would have been justified in dumping the entire wine box in the trash on day one.

Dumping trash on your property is a different matter as there there is a clear intention of the owner of the trash to be rid of it - so it becomes a nobody's property. Here the thing is clearly not left with an intention to alienate the property by the owner.

As I said before, you can charge someone for storage costs in such case as - and here you are right that they do not just have a right to leave it there - but that does not mean it becomes your property.

It was not found in a public place, and thus not akin to "found money" out in public or other such, where you have a duty to turn it over to a police station.

If the Fed-Ex driver by mistake left his wallet on your property, why would that be different than if you found his wallet in a street? The duty is the same.

Legally I would view this wine the same as I would a neighbor's apple tree where the branches hang over my yard and some of the apples fall into my yard. In that scenario who has legal claim to those apples? Can I eat them, or no? Do I have to give my neighbor traverse through my property to collect them? Am I required to leave them on my yard until my neighbor feels like collecting them?

Most legal systems actually have special provisions dealing with branches or fruit falling across the property boundaries and the like. Leaving one's thing on someone else's property by mistake is not one of those special cases. Under Polish law (which is based on French and German civil law), in such case you can give someone a reasonable deadline for removing the apples - and if they do not meet it, you can remove them and charge him for the expenses. You can charge reasonable costs of storage as well (and usually, if the thing you are keeping is valuable, you can keep the thing in lien until such costs are paid). You can also keep the apples if it is clear they would get spoiled if he does not remove them (but obviously this is not the case with something more durable like wine). Likewise, you can charge him for any damage that his branches and fruit falling on your property caused to your property. You are NOT automatically becoming the owner of anything that inadvertently enters your property - that would be quite insane.

I don't know the answers to those questions legally, but morally I feel like consumables that fall into my property are by right mine, regardless of what the law says.

Good for you.

[The Brain]

It would be a bummer to go to gaol for drugs dropped on your lawn by a young man running from the law.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Good for you.

Well this is more of a moral issue even though the legal topic has interesting elements to it, there is no chance this matter sees the inside of a court, and in fact given the legal advice made in this thread I feel compelled to increase the pace of consumption of this wine to remove any evidence.

[garbon]

It would be a bummer to go to gaol for drugs dropped on your lawn by a young man running from the law.

About that, can I get those back from you now?

[The Brain]

It would be a bummer to go to gaol for drugs dropped on your lawn by a young man running from the law.

About that, can I get those back from you now?

Prank poster! Prank poster!

[garbon]

It would be a bummer to go to gaol for drugs dropped on your lawn by a young man running from the law.

About that, can I get those back from you now?

Prank poster! Prank poster!

[Zoupa]

I would have popped open the box and stole the whole lot on day 1.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Where did you get the idea of the FedEx drivers as franchisees?  I worked for FedEx as a temp ~20 years ago and I am almost certain that was not the case then.

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