This document discusses whether a person can be guilty of theft if they received property validly, such as through a gift. It summarizes different court cases that have addressed this issue, with some finding theft is possible even with valid ownership, while others have doubted that. The document also analyzes key elements of theft, appropriation and dishonesty, considering if valid ownership could still allow for these elements based on precedent set in cases like Gomez. In the end, it questions whether the rule from Mazo that valid ownership prevents theft fits with what is otherwise known about the legal definition of theft.
This document discusses whether a person can be guilty of theft if they received property validly, such as through a gift. It summarizes different court cases that have addressed this issue, with some finding theft is possible even with valid ownership, while others have doubted that. The document also analyzes key elements of theft, appropriation and dishonesty, considering if valid ownership could still allow for these elements based on precedent set in cases like Gomez. In the end, it questions whether the rule from Mazo that valid ownership prevents theft fits with what is otherwise known about the legal definition of theft.
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This document discusses whether a person can be guilty of theft if they received property validly, such as through a gift. It summarizes different court cases that have addressed this issue, with some finding theft is possible even with valid ownership, while others have doubted that. The document also analyzes key elements of theft, appropriation and dishonesty, considering if valid ownership could still allow for these elements based on precedent set in cases like Gomez. In the end, it questions whether the rule from Mazo that valid ownership prevents theft fits with what is otherwise known about the legal definition of theft.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
← ← Whether a person who receives indefeasible title to property cannot be guilty of theft of that property. • Gomez following Lawrence v. MPC – that a person can be guilty of theft notwithstanding that he or she obtained the property in question with the consent of its owner. • CA in Mazo – a person should nevertheless not be guilty of theft if he or she receives an indefeasible title in the property in question, for example as a fully valid gift. That view was doubted by CA in Kendrick and Hopkins but commended by Prof. Sir John Smith. ← ← Mazo was made gifts by od woman showing signs of mental deterioration. • Convicted of theft in respect of her acceptance of them. o There can be no liability for theft in respect of a valid gift. o Mazon’s liability depended upon whether old lady’s mental deterioration was so severe as to vitiate the gift. ← Mazo is not strong authority for the proposition that the receipt of a valid gift cannot be theft for 2 reasons. ← 1) the point was conceded by the Crown rather than properly argued. ← 2) judgment does not consider that gift may be vitiated unde different reasons e.g. undue influence or unconsciounability. ← ← Kendrick and Hopkins – conspiracy to steal. ← It is implicit that CA did not accept proposition derived from Mazon. ← ← Question – does the Mazo proposition fit well with what we otherwise know about the offence of theft? • 2 elements o Appropriation and Dishonesty ← ← Appropriation ← Perhaps the conceptual basis for the proposition that acquisition of an indefeasible title cannot be theft comes from approach that such a transaction cannot amount to an appropriation. • Prof Sir John Smith takes this view. ← ← Leading authority on the meaning of appropriation is the UKHL decision in Gomez. Is Mazo reconcilable with that? ← ← Does Gomez say anything about what happens when A gains an indefeasible title to property? ← Seems to uggest Gomez decided that oconsent is wholly irrelevant to appropriation. Lord Keith expresses himself as following Lawrence and identifiues this view as the ratio of that case. Lord Dilhorne identified at any rae one consideration behind this view as being that “Parliament by the omission of these words [‘without the consent of the owners’] has relieved the posection of the burden of establishing that the taking was without the owner’s consent.” ← ← On this view it is the ratio of Gomez that the acquisition of an indefeasbible as well as voidable or no title to property is an appropriation. ← ← Dishonesty ← It might be said that a person who obtains indefeasible title to the property in question cannot be guilty of stealing it because such a person does not, be definition, act dishonestly. ← ← Authoritive reading of dishonest established by CA in Ghosh. • 2 part test ← 1) 03/03/2011 17:09:00
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