June 15, 2016, 09:40 AM | #26 |
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If it had came back as stolen before your friend paid back the loan your friend would have had to repay the loan anyway. The gun would have been given to the appropriate LEO and returned to its owner that reported it stolen. I had 5 guns returned to me well over 5 years after I reported them stolen. The story is close to what your friend went through except they did not give them to the guy that pawned them. Provided he repayed the loan no charges were filed.
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June 15, 2016, 11:54 AM | #27 | |||||
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So the obligation of the original owner to reimburse a good faith purchaser applies only when the good faith purchaser acquired the item at a public auction or from a merchant selling similar things. So the obligation of reimbursement would not apply when the purchaser acquired the item through a private sale. See also Article 526:
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The actual reason for the unique Louisiana rule is that Louisiana is a Civil (Roman) Law jurisdiction. Vestiges of Civil Law principles are also found in the community property systems of marital property adopted in nine States. The differences between the rights of a good faith purchaser of stolen goods under Common Law principles and Civil Law principles were outlined this very interesting article, Schwartz, Alan, "Rethinking the Laws of Good Faith Purchase" (2011). Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 4166, pp 1335 -- 1336 (footnotes omitted):
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June 15, 2016, 06:39 PM | #28 |
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Such are the hazards of buying stolen property.
About 20 years ago the 1962 327 Corvette belonging to an acquaintance was stolen. About 15 years later an observant policeman observed a 1962 Corvette being loaded into a shipping container at a Texas port. The policeman ran a check and discovered the car was stolen. The police impounded the car and the department called the legal owner. The legal owner borrowed a car hauler trailer and retrieved his car from the police. |
June 16, 2016, 10:53 AM | #29 |
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Frank, the whole point of the article you cite to (interesting article, by the way) is to expose the lack of uniformity in "good faith purchase laws". From your Yale Law Review article:
"The lack of harmony in good faith purchase laws, combined with the multibillion dollar market in stolen goods, creates costly and unnecessary domestic and international litigation. Over the last two decades, there has been a dramatic increase in contests between original owners and good faith purchasers. The cases raise complex conflict of laws issues. In many of the cases, the resolution of the contest turns on the question of which jurisdiction's law determines the parties' rights. Thus, when the location of the goods and/or the domicile of the claimants are in different states or nations, the multijurisdictional character of the dispute substantially complicates the ownership issues." And, then the article goes on to propose a solution to the perceived problem. I admit, some of the defenses hing on various statutes of limitations rather than BFP, but the results are basically the same. |
June 16, 2016, 11:02 AM | #30 | |
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Quote:
We're only interested in this thread in the U. S., and the laws here on this issue are generally uniform from State-to-State. Louisiana is an outlier because of the strong influence of Civil Law there. And even in Louisiana, the general rule that legal title is not be transferred to a good faith purchaser of stolen property applies to something sold privately.
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"It is long been a principle of ours that one is no more armed because he has possession of a firearm than he is a musician because he owns a piano. There is no point in having a gun if you are not capable of using it skillfully." -- Jeff Cooper |
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June 16, 2016, 11:14 AM | #31 |
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Several years ago, I was told that there are some states (Oregon was specifically mentioned) in which a pawnbroker is not required to return a stolen gun at no cost to the legitimate owner. The best the legitimate owner can hope for is that the pawnbroker is required to allow the owner to buy the gun back at the pawnbroker's cost. I did a quick google search just now, and didn't find anything on this. Is this a real legal process in some states, or was I misinformed?
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June 16, 2016, 11:53 AM | #32 |
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No, if you read the article, it discussed in terms of both state and international: ...claimants are in different states or nations...."
However, I acknowledge that you are technically correct that rarely will BFP be recognized for outright theft (except perhaps Louisiana under some circumstances and other code oriented countries), it may be recognized (depending on the State) where goods are obtained through some kind of trickery, fraud or deceit. That can be a pretty blurry line. |
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