Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew H.
It's complicated, though, because sometimes you want law privatized. If I rent a car from Enterprise for 3 days, and instead of returning it I drive to California and keep it, I've committed theft - not by stealing the car in the first place (Enterprise gave it to me, along with the keys and permission to use it), but by exceeding the terms of the contract. I don't think that many people would object if, a year later, I'm caught with the car and charged with theft.
But it's not that simple - if I rent a car for three days and haven't returned it on the fourth, it doesn't seem right to arrest me for theft then, even though I've exceeded the terms of the contract. (And in fact Enterprise won't call the police at that point, although they may try to repossess the car if they can't get in contact with me. And if they did call the police, the police wouldn't do anything at that point either, at least not where I live.)
I'm not sure where the dividing line is between civil and criminal (no one is, really), but it does seem like we want a pretty severe violation of the terms of the contract before something becomes criminal. Something beyond violating *any* provision of the contract.
An a historical note, 500 years ago, at common law, this wasn't a problem because theft required a "trespassory" taking. Meaning that, with a couple of exceptions, if I gave money to you freely, you couldn't be convicted of theft for doing something with it that I didn't authorize. This meant that embezzlement wasn't a crime - if I'm your boss and I gave you £10 to deposit in the bank and you kept it, there's no crime because you gave me the money voluntarily, so it's up to you to get it back with a civil case. (There was an exception in the case of impersonation, but I think that was the only one).
Obviously we don't want to go back to a world where embezzlement and most forms of fraud are legal, but it's interesting to me that after 500 years, we're still not always sure where to draw the civil/criminal distinction wrt certain acts.
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Most of the time the 'reasonable man' rule would apply to legal gray areas. Would a reasonable man consider keeping a rental an extra day theft? No, a reasonable man would not.
As far as keeping it longer, it would depend on circumstances. If you kept it because you had a heart attack and were in the hospital, you wouldn't be liable to criminal penalties. If you took it to another state and sold it, obviously you would.
Intent still matters, thankfully.