Dustbinmen appealed against their convictions for the larceny of refuse as they removed it from commercial premises. Their employers had posted notices which provided that any proceeds from selling refuse had to be shared with the corporation, and warned of criminal prosecutions. The defendants had collected and sold on sacks of rags and wool they had carried on the dustcarts. In one case the sack was shown to have been corporation property.
Held: The appeals failed. The original owner had not abandoned the refuse by placing it outside his premises for collection. It remained there for the purpose of awaiting collection by the corporation. On collection it passed into the constructive possession of the local authority. Given the defendants’ knowlege of the notices and of the agreements made, they had sufficient animus furandi.
Goddard LCJ said: ‘The first point that is taken here, that the property was abandoned, is on the face of it untenable. Of course, that is not so. If I put refuse in my dustbin outside my house, I am not abandoning it in the sense that I am leaving it for anybody to take away. I am putting it out so that it may be collected and taken away by the local authority, and until it has been taken away by the local authority it is my property. It is my property and I can take it back and prevent anybody else from taking it away. It is simply put there for the Corporation [the employer of the dustmen] or the local authority, as the case may be, to come and clear it away. Once the Corporation come and clear it away, it seems to me that because I intended it to pass from myself to them, it becomes their property. Therefore, there is no ground for saying that this is abandoned property. As long as the property remains on the owner’s premises, it cannot be abandoned property. It is a wholly untenable proposition to say that refuse which a householder puts out to taken away is abandoned. Very likely he does not want it himself and that is why he puts it in the dustbin. He puts it in the dustbin, not so that anybody can come along and take it, but so that the Corporation can come along and take it.’
Judges:
Goddard LCJ
Citations:
(1956) 121 JP 163, [1957] 41 Crim App Rep 5
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Crime
Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.242138
