§ 32.08 LARCENY: LOST AND MISLAID PROPERTY

• Jurisdiction: North Carolina

§ 32.08. Larceny: Lost and Mislaid Property

The law is confronted with competing policy concerns when a person loses or misplaces his property. On the one hand, there is the interest of the owner in regaining his property; on the other hand, society has an interest in promoting the relatively unrestricted use or transfer of property. As a result, courts developed rules that seek to balance these competing interests.

The common law rights of a finder of lost property depend on two factors: (1) the possessory interest of the owner at the time the property is discovered; and (2) the finder's state of mind when he retrieves the lost property.

Regarding the first factor, an owner of property retains constructive possession of his lost property if there exists a reasonable clue to ownership of it when it is discovered. A reasonable clue to ownership exists if the finder: (1) knows to whom the lost property belongs; or (2) "has reasonable ground to believe, from the nature of the property, or the circumstances under which it is found, that if he . . . deals honestly with it, the owner will appear or be ascertained."⁸⁶ Thus, a court is more apt to rule that there exists a reasonable clue to ownership of an expensive piece of jewelry found on the floor of a grocery store than a dollar bill aimlessly blowing down the street.

If there is no reasonable clue to ownership of the lost property, then the property is treated as if it had been abandoned; under these circumstances, nobody has possession of the property in its lost state. Therefore, the finder becomes the rightful non-trespassory possessor of the property and may use it as he wishes. However, if there is a reasonable clue to ownership of the property, and thus the person who lost the property retains constructive possession of it, the finder's state of mind upon discovery of the lost property is critical. When D, the finder, picks up the lost (reasonable-clue-to-ownership) property, he takes possession of it from V, the owner. If D takes possession with the intent to steal the property, he is guilty of larceny.⁸⁷ If D picks up the article with the intent to find the owner, the taking is not trespassory; if D subsequently absconds with the property, he is not guilty of larceny since the original taking was lawful. Moreover, because V did not entrust the property to D, D's actions may fall outside the scope of a typical embezzlement statute.⁸⁸

Mislaid property is treated somewhat differently than lost...