"The finder of lost… property does not acquire title to that property," my property case book explains, "contrary to the saying 'Finders keepers, losers weepers.'" Thanks, law school. Spare me the prevailing jurisprudence on "calling it."
But as silly as that passage sounded in my head when I read it, I realized that a few of my classes have added nuance to, or even controverted, certain axioms of fairness that we take for granted as true -- even the ones we've known since we were little. Law school, you see, is a lot like moral philosophy. When doing moral philosophy, you try out certain basic principles (like "don't ever lie" or "finders keepers"), and you apply them to more and more ridiculous hypotheticals until they break -- that is, until they produce a ridiculous result. For example, strict utilitarianism looks pretty good until it weighs in on organ donation. (Namely because utilitarians want your organs
before the car accident.)
Law does the same kind of work. Laws -- or principles, where laws don't exist yet -- are applied to lots of different cases until the results they produce seem intuitively unjust. Only, unlike moral philosophy, courts have been around long enough to have done these "experiments" on actual cases with human beings. The most ridiculous conflicts that a moral philosopher could make up… have happened. The sayings we take to be true and fair have been tested to the limit and honed by centuries of application, line drawing, and the occasional mistake.
Here's what I've learned so far:
"First come, first served." This is actually on pretty solid legal ground.Things that no one owns can be claimed by the first person to possess them. This is the principle behind hunting, and is also related to another fairly solid truism: "possession is nine tenths of the law" (if only a quarter of my reading).
"Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me." Maybe so, but you can still sue someone if they act like they're going to hurt you. That's assault.
"Finders keepers, losers weepers." As I say above, not so. People who misplace property are entitled to its return. Transfers of ownership -- not always, but generally -- have to be on purpose.
"No backsies." This really speaks to contract law. In contracts, "no backsies" only applies when neither party has his fingers crossed at the time of the deal, provided it's not Opposite Day. Kidding. Actually, the essence of contracts law is that there are not, in fact, any backsies. If you make a deal with someone and then renege, most of the time you will be responsible for putting the "non-breaching party" into as good a position she would have been in had you been less, you know, of an asshole.*
*Not necessary if the other party has cooties.
Of course, there's still a lot to learn, a few schoolyard maxims left to untangle. I'm unclear on whether I can sue someone who stands me up for damages like "bus fare" and "a kiss goodnight," and I may never know. But I'll definitely post again if I learn exactly how much liability applies to that most sacred childhood culprit: "he who smelt it."
