Thoughts from the first week

The first week of Law School is winding down, and I'm headed to the courthouse in a few minutes to be sworn in. I'd say my first impression probably goes something like 'Whoa.'.

That aside, I'd prefer to use this forum to talk about the things I'm learning that are of interest to me, both from a lay and legal perspective.

We worked on a chain of cases called DeWeerth V. Baldinger, a 2nd Circuit Federal Court case focusing around the property rights to a Monet Painting. The real center of the decision was grouped around the interpretation of the New York statute of limitations for a replevin action (Which would be a suit to get back what's yours). The issue before the court was whether the statute had implicit in it a plaintiff's duty of due diligence to attempt to find the chattel.

The ultimate ruling of the case was that the plaintiff does in fact have such a duty, at least as it relates to art, and keeping in mind the plaintiffs ability to make the search and the type of property. The 2nd Circuit Appellate Court ruled that DeWeerth did in fact have such a duty and had failed to exercise it, so the action to recover the painting was not timely, and the statute of limitations (3 years from demand and refusal) did not apply.

That's all well and good, but it raised for me two predominant questions, one of which is more of a lay question and the other more legal.

The first is a general question about whether the rights of a good faith purchaser should be protected, or rather the rights of a true owner. As an example: Alec owns a widget worth $20,000. Bob steals the widget from Alec and sells it to Carl 'for value' of $20,000. Alec sues Carl demanding the widget be returned. Should Carl have to give it back? Is he just out his 20 grand, does he have a responsibility to determine before purchasing if the widget was stolen?

From a legal perspective, the perspective seems to be that the 'true owner' (Alec) has the vast majority of the rights to the chattel. The 'good faith purchaser' (Carl) is pretty much without rights; unless he can finagle some kind of legal solution, he's pretty much out of luck. Upon consideration, I'd have to say I agree with the typical perspective of the courts. There's tons of room for argument, though. I'd welcome comments!

The other thing I noticed was that when the 2nd Circuit Court got the case, they seemed to decide it a little cavalierly. For one thing, they never certified the question to the New York Court (asking the Supreme Court of New York what they would do), but more surprising than that is the fact that the judge in that case did not remand the case to trial.

It would seem to me pretty clear that the question 'did the plaintiff exercise due diligence in pursuing their stolen property' is a matter of fact, not of law, and outside the scope of decision that a judge can make. I assume I'll learn in the next year or so what the ramifications of that are. Just some thoughts to start out, I'd appreciate any comments.

P.S. The Mets have a less than .1 % chance of making the playoffs, according to coolstandings.com . =[