If a stolen item is stolen again, who has the liability? This is a follow up on a poorly phrased question. Assume a car is the only asset anyone has in this scenario. Person B steals a car from person A by forging the registration in a fraudulent manner. Then Person C steals the car. What happens to the car once everyone is caught? Does person A get the car back, or are they only able to collect damages from person B, who is broke? Does person C keep ownership of the car since they didn't steal from the legitimate owner, or do they give it back to A?
You cannot pass on better title than you have The fraudster (B) in this scenario does not have good title in the car and so the thief (C) doesn't either: 1) because they are a thief and 2) because the person they stole it from didn't own it. If C had paid B for the car then C would still not own it because while they are no longer a thief, B still doesn't have good title. This is the case even if C didn't know that B didn't own the car. A is entitled to recover the car from whoever has it. There are 3 exceptions to this rule: Voidable title: If B acquires title through a contract that is voidable (e.g. A is a minor) and then sells it to C. C as an owner in good faith owns the goods even if A voids the contract with B. Entrustment: If B has been entrusted the goods by A and sells them (perhaps by mistake) to C in the ordinary course of B's business. C as a good-faith buyer owns the goods. A can seek recompense from B but cannot get the goods from C. This probably needs an example, I take antique jewellery to an antique jeweller for cleaning, the jeweller's assistant mistakenly sells them, I lose the goods and the jeweller must compensate me. Negotiable instruments: Certain things, notably cash, cheques, shares and bearer bonds are subject to different rules. If B steals, say cash, from A and then uses that cash to buy something from C, A cannot demand the return of the cash from C unless they can prove that C knew that B had stolen it. Negotiable interests belong to anyone who acquired them in good faith. In all cases, a good-faith actor who is out of pocket is owed compensation from the bad faith actor - whether it’s possible to collect this is a practical rather than a legal issue.
I gather that you either a) don't want the bike or b) are physically unable to retrieve it. You are acting like a spectator here. You ARE involved. By doing nothing, you are creating trouble for others, and failing to create a good. They must go through an extensive process to protect the rights of an owner they don't know who even is. What you should do, is to send a paper letter to the landlord at that complex. Dear landlord, You may have a bicycle at Location Here inside Apartment Complex Name Here. I am the owner of the bicycle. I had to leave the region, and I had to leave the bicycle behind. I cannot come back and claim it. Perhaps you know someone who could use a bicycle. Please give the bicycle to them, or dispose of it as you see fit. Here is the key to the lock. Signed, Your name Why a paper letter? Because you can't email a key! If you sent an email and key separately, they'd get confused. Plus, the signature on paper is legally binding, so they don't have to worry about it being a trick. Tape the physical key to a piece of paper, to keep it from rattling around and chewing a hole in the envelope. (it could be the paper the letter is written on, note that a printout of a Word document is fine). Paper letters have gone out of style, I know; you can work out how to send them, but an older person will help you do that faster, since well, we used to do everything that way. Now if you do want the bicycle, that gets harder. You will have to have one of your roommates give a key to someone who can retrieve it for you and store it for you. And you/they may need to coordinate with the landlord to even get access to it / find out if it's still there. This is probably a waste of your time.
For the offense of receiving stolen goods, "tracing" does not usually apply. It must be the actual good stolen and not proceeds of illegal activity. Tracing could come up in an effort to impose a "constructive trust" (usually by a private party) or "civil forfeiture" (usually by law enforcement) on the proceeds of embezzlement or fraud, for example. Tracing in this circumstance is governed by broad considerations of equity law and are highly fact specific. The methods are fairly ad hoc and mostly come down to rules of reason. For example, a court might find that anything clearly purchased with clean assets that were not comingled with dirty assets are not subject to forfeiture or a constructive trust, but that the entire amount of comingled assets might be subject to forfeiture or a constructive trust up to the total amount less the amount of clean assets which were comingled. This issue came up in the U.S. Supreme Court of Luis v. United States in 2014 over whether clean funds of someone subject to fraud liability could be frozen to protect the solvency of someone who may have already squandered the dirty funds when the defendant wants to use the clean funds for an expensive legal defense of the case (SCOTUS said that assets purely traceable to clean sources can't be tied up so as to prevent them from being used in a legal defense of the case.) Tracing generally does not extend to a bona fide purchaser for value (i.e. someone with no knowledge of wrongdoing is paid fair market value for something or pays fair market value for an asset) of something from the person engaged in misconduct because there was no economic benefit from the transaction to either party's net worth. What if Bob offers a smaller sum of money to many people, small enough that Bob could easily afford to give such a gift to one person, but the combined cost of so many small gifts adds up to an amount bob couldn't/wouldn't have been able to afford without his supplementary income? Could someone argue that the gift they received from Bob came from his legal income, but the other gifts Bob made to others was due to Bob's illegal activities, by claiming Bob was likely to give a gift to them without the extra illegal income but not to the others etc? In this situation, the gifts would be a "fraudulent transfer" because absent his illegal assets, Bob would probably be insolvent (i.e. have debts in excess of his assets), and transfers made without receiving substantially equivalent value in exchange can be unwound by his creditors if he is insolvent himself within a certain number of years. His solvency at the time of the gift rather than tracing from legal or illegal income respectively, would be the relevant legal issue. Of course, if the amounts of the gifts were small, it might not be economic to sue for their return.
You always run some legal risk when you drive. As long as you are insured (you have a card in your hand) and you have permission to drive the car, it does not matter who owns the car. There is a difference between the legal minimum insurance coverage and actually adequate coverage, and since you are not getting separate insurance where control the insurance levels, you theoretically run some liability risk if you have an accident and the coverage is less than the damages (insurance doesn't mean that the other guy can't take you to court for the rest of the amount). There is also a risk that the housemate will do something crazy like cancel the insurance coverage for you, or report the car stolen, so you have to decide how worried you are about that possibility.
This is likely to depend on whether Person B is aware of what Person A is doing, regardless of any imputations Person A makes as to the nature of their business. If Person B is aware, or it is found that Person B ought to have been aware, that Person A is doing something illegal, then they may be held contributorily liable for damages suffered. For instance, in (what is still) a landmark case for copyright infringement, A&amp;M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., 239 F.3d 1004 (2001), Napster was found to be contributorily guilty of copyright infringement. A defense that they attempted is they weren't aware of it - which was thrown out on the basis that they should have, and could have, known that it was happening. I'm not a lawyer, but you'll need to give a lot more information about the situation for liability to be determined. Oh, and also &mdash; both of them could be held liable. It's not necessarily a case of one or the other.
Claim is irrelevant. Specific to Maryland Law, Assault occurs when one makes or attempts to make physical contact with another OR intentionally frightens another. Alice saying she helped to steal the car and your definition of the theft as &quot;accosted Carol&quot; implies one of the three forms of Assault took place. Alice just admitted to commiting the crime she thought was wrongly charged to her. The crime she was trying to get out of is called &quot;Assault and Battery&quot; which is where Assault leads to actual injury or physical harm to the victim OR attempts to actually injure or harm another OR puts them in fear of such action. In Maryland Law, the Battery portion almost always is paired with assault while in other states, it might be possible to commit Battery without Assault (though in these states, normally a separate assault charge to Battery is usually added.). As a helpful tip, the two words general break down as follows: Assault: The act of threatening harm or making unwanted non-injurious contact with another person. Battery: Causing Injurious Harm to another person. In Maryland, Alice was rightly charged with assault. Upon capture, Bob will recieve an &quot;Assault and Battery&quot; charge for hitting Carol with the stolen card and may get an addition simple Assault charge for the threats before he drove away.
It might be illegal, depending on where you are. If it is known to the person who owns the vehicle occupying your space prior to doing so that wheelclamping may be the result, then the common law doctrine of volenti non fit injuria ("to a willing party, harm is not done") would lead to a conclusion that one who knowingly places themselves in a situation where harm may befall them is not entitled to bring a claim of tort against the other party (in the United States assumption of risk is a similar doctrine, but doesn't apply here because wheelclamping is an intentional act). In your situation, this means that the owner occupying your space cannot bring a case in tort against you. While it is generally applied to harm to people, there is precedent (albeit in British case law) for the doctrine to be applied to vehicles, and specifically, to the situation you describe - see Arthur v Anker and Vine v London Borough of Waltham Forest. While cases from other jurisdictions are not binding, I have not been able to find any similar cases in the United States, and so it is possible that such cases will be persuasive. Note that this is highly jurisdiction-specific, and there may be laws in your state that make it unlawful - at least one high-profile case involving a McDonalds and its parking lot operator cites California law authorising only law enforcement to impound vehicles, and considering wheelclamping such an act. However, I have not been able to find the record of a judgement on this matter. It is also likely that if the payment you request is excessive, the owner would be able to seek relief, in the form of reducing the payment owed to a reasonable amount. However, if the parking space was not marked in some way to signal that it was reserved for use, then the owner of the vehicle may be entitled to seek injunctive relief and damages from a court. This would be on the basis of, if you only wheelclamped the car and declined to remove the wheelclamp upon the owner's request, the tort of detinue. But, if you attempted to request payment from them, then as Dale mentioned in his answer, you have committed extortion (wheelclamping is actually listed as a crime of extortion).
When the matter is final (no more appeals), the winner in the suit will request a writ of execution to collect whatever is owed. This may involve seizing a person's cash, car and so on. There are limits to what can be seized (some things are exempt by law), for example they can't outright seize a person's home. However, they can put a lien on it, meaning that when the house is sold, the proceeds go to the winner. There are various limits on what can be taken, for example Social Security benefits, welfare, child support – the details are largely determined by state law. There is also a process where the loser's wages can be garnished (there are federal and state limits on how much can be taken). Ultimately, it may not be possible to collect everything. However, today's lack of funds does not necessarily mean permanent lack of funds. A judgment will be valid for a long time and may be renewed. The reason for liability for damages comes down to basic justice. If you harm a person to some extent, you should compensate them accordingly for the wrong that you have done to them. The job of the jury is to determine two factual questions: (1) did the defendant wrongfully harm the plaintiff, and (2) what is the extent of harm. The ability of a defendant to pay such an amount does not affect the answer to those two questions, so inability to pay is legally irrelevant. how much harm was done