But what about Bridges v. Hawkesworth. Does the Court overrule Bridges? Page 128:
The case of Bridges v. Hawkesworth stands by itself, and on special grounds; and on those grounds it seems to me that the decision in that case was right. Some one had accidentally dropped a bundle of bank notes in a public shop. The shopkeeper did not know they had been dropped, and did not in any sense exercise control over them. The shop was open to the public, and they were invited to come there. A customer picked up the notes and gave them to the shopkeeper in order that he might advertise them. The owner of the notes was not found, and the finder then sought to recover them from the shopkeeper. It was held that he was entitled to do so, the ground of the decision being, as was pointed out by Patteson, J., that the notes, being dropped in the public part of the shop, were never in the custody of the shopkeeper, or “within the protection of his house.”
Are you persuaded by this reasoning? Isn’t a shopkeeper also in possession of his shop and doesn’t he also have the right to control what his invitees are allowed to do on his property?
So, why does Plaintiff-Landowner win in Sharman?
Does he win because Defendant was his employee?
Because the rings were discovered buried in the mud at the bottom of the pond?
Neither matters--P. 128:
the general principle seems to me to be that where a person has possession of house or land, with a manifest intention to exercise control over it and the things which may be upon or in it, then, if something is found on that land, whether by an employee of the owner or by a stranger, the presumption is that the possession of that thing is in the owner of the locus in quo.
I think another way of stating that rule is to say that lost
property belongs to the first possessor, and, in the case of lost property
found on real property, the first
possessor is the landowner because of the landowner’s possession of his land
“with the manifest intention to exercise control over it and the things which
may be discovered upon it."
But again, why doesn’t that rule cover Bridges?
Don’t shopkeepers have the right to exercise control over what the public does when it comes into the shop. What would happen if, on a football Saturday, you and 10 of your classmates show up with a keg of beer and lawn chairs and make yourself comfortable in front of one of the big screen tvs in Best Buy?
Shopkeepers invite you to shop, to purchase merchandise, not to party or to go on a treasure hunt in the store. Just like the landowner in Sharman, the Shopkeeper is in possession and control of his land.
I think Sharman is right and Bridges is wrong. But not everyone will agree with my view of the cases. What do y'all think?
