A good-faith assertion or belief of legal entitlement to property. The belief defeats the fraudulent intent required for theft offenses such as embezzlement when the actor converts property he honestly thinks he is owed. The same belief satisfies the hostility element of adverse possession when successive possessors occupy land under a mistaken boundary.
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How its tested
Common Examples
6
Mistaken Boundary Supports Tacking
Claire Campbell and her predecessors maintained a hedgerow and irrigation ditch on a narrow strip they believed belonged to their farm because of an old city survey stake. They planted crops and grazed cattle on the strip for decades without permission from the true owner Charlotte Chung. When Chung later sued to quiet title, the court held that the good-faith belief allowed tacking of the successive periods and satisfied the hostility requirement for adverse possession.
Urgent Re-Entry After Dispossession
Colin Chambers returned to his cabin after a winter absence and found strangers occupying it. Believing the occupants had no right to the land and that waiting for a court order would cause exceptional hardship because winter supplies were inside, Chambers used reasonable force to regain entry. The honest belief that the occupants lacked any claim of right justified the re-entry under the governing defense rules.
Cade Carpenter attempted to drive his repaired car off the lot without paying the bill. The service manager Curtis Cannon stepped in front of the vehicle and grabbed the door handle to enforce the shop's lien. Knowing Cannon was acting under a lawful claim of right to retain the car, Carpenter punched him. The knowledge that force was being used to protect property under a claim of right barred Carpenter from claiming self-defense.
Retreat Before Deadly Force
Christine Castro confronted a neighbor who asserted ownership of a shared tool shed and demanded she leave. Knowing she could safely retreat or surrender the shed to the person claiming a right to it, Castro nevertheless drew a weapon. The availability of safe retreat to a person asserting a claim of right defeated her justification for using deadly force.
Honest Belief Negates Theft Intent
Charlotte Chung removed scrap metal from a construction site believing her former employer still owed her wages and that the metal constituted payment. She openly loaded the metal onto her truck without concealment. The honest belief that she held a claim of right to the metal prevented the formation of the fraudulent intent required for embezzlement.
Morrissette v. United States342 U.S. 246, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288.
In December 1948, Morissette went hunting on a large tract of land in Michigan that the Government had used as a practice bombing range for the Air Force. Spent bomb casings from the range had been dumped into heaps and left exposed to the weather for four years or more. Morissette collected three tons of the casings, flattened them at a nearby farm, and sold them for eighty-four dollars.
Morissette worked as a fruit stand operator in the summer and as a trucker and scrap iron collector in the winter. He was an honorably discharged veteran of World War II who had a good reputation among his neighbors. He loaded the casings onto his truck and transported them in broad daylight without any effort to conceal what he was doing.
When authorities began an investigation, Morissette voluntarily and candidly told them the whole story, explaining that he believed the casings were abandoned and that he had no intention of stealing them. He was indicted for unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly stealing and converting property of the United States valued at eighty-four dollars in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 641.
At trial, the District Court refused to permit Morissette to show that he thought the property was abandoned or to argue that he lacked criminal intent. The court instructed the jury that if it believed the government testimony, Morissette was guilty, and the jury convicted him. The court sentenced him to two months in prison or a fine of two hundred dollars.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
Compass Logistics seized a shipment of bananas in a foreign port after its local agent was ousted by a rival company. Company officers believed they retained a contractual right to the goods despite the change in local control. The asserted claim of right framed the subsequent antitrust litigation over whether the seizure constituted an unlawful restraint.
American Banana Co. v. United Fruit Co.213 U.S. 347 (1909)
The defendant, a New Jersey corporation organized in 1899, had bought the property and business of several of its previous competitors with provision against their resuming the trade. It made contracts with others regulating the quantity to be purchased and the price to be paid. It acquired a controlling amount of stock in still others. All of this was done with the intent to prevent competition and to control and monopolize the banana trade.
It also organized a selling company of which it held the stock. By agreement the company sold at fixed prices all the bananas of the combining parties.
In 1903 McConnell started a banana plantation in Panama, then part of the United States of Colombia. He began to build a railway which would afford his only means of export. Both actions were in accordance with the laws of the United States of Colombia. The defendant notified McConnell that he must either combine or stop. Two months later the governor of Panama recommended to his national government that Costa Rica be allowed to administer the territory through which the railroad was to run. In November 1903 Panama revolted and became an independent republic declaring its boundary to be that settled by the award. In June 1904 the plaintiff, an Alabama corporation organized in 1904, bought out McConnell and went on with the work as it had a right to do under the laws of Panama. But in July Costa Rican soldiers and officials seized a part of the plantation and a cargo of supplies and have held them ever since and stopped the construction and operation of the plantation and railway.
In August, one Astua, by ex parte proceedings, got a judgment from a Costa Rican court declaring the plantation to be his. Although the proceedings were not within the jurisdiction of Costa Rica and were contrary to its laws and void, agents of the defendant then bought the lands from Astua. The plaintiff has tried to induce the government of Costa Rica to withdraw its soldiers. The plaintiff also has tried to persuade the United States to interfere but has been thwarted in both by the defendant and has failed. As a result of the defendant's acts the plaintiff has been deprived of the use of the plantation and the railway and the plantation and supplies have been injured.
The Circuit Court dismissed the complaint upon motion as not setting forth a cause of action. This judgment was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals. The case then was brought to this court by writ of error.
Does a claim of right need to be reasonable to defeat theft intent?
No. An honest though unreasonable belief that one is entitled to the property is sufficient to negate the fraudulent intent required for embezzlement or larceny.
Supporting sources
How does a claim of right affect the hostility element in adverse possession?
A good-faith belief that the occupied land belongs to the claimant satisfies the hostility requirement even when the belief rests on a mistaken boundary. Successive possessors may tack their periods when each acted under the same mistaken belief.
Supporting sources
When may a person use force to resist someone acting under a claim of right to property?
Modern self-defense rules generally prohibit resistance when the actor knows the other person is using force under a lawful claim of right to protect property. Exceptions exist for public officers or when the actor was unlawfully dispossessed and is making a justified re-entry.
Supporting sources
Does an open assertion of a claim of right help prove the defense in an embezzlement prosecution?
Yes. Open and undisguised retention or conversion of property tends to support the existence of a bona fide claim of right that negates fraudulent intent.
Supporting sources
342 U.S. 246, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288.
…“1. For the purposes of this Act— “(1) A person steals who, without the consent of the owner, fraudulently and without a claim of right made in good faith, takes and carries away anything capable of being stolen with intent, at the time of such taking, permanently to deprive the owner thereof: “Provided that a person…