Posted by Eugene Volokh:
I Like My Company Car, Boss,
I THINK I'LL TAKE IT HOME AND SELL IT. Reader Christopher Rohrbacher
points to this [1]AP story:
[Red Sox] first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, [who made the last out
in the Red Sox World Series championship,] still hasn't let go of
the [game-ending] ball. . . .
Carmine Tiso, spokesman for MLB, told the Globe that Mientkiewicz
owns the baseball, though Joe Januszewski, Red Sox director of
corporate partnerships, said he thinks the team owns it. . . .
Of course the team owns it. Possession is sometimes 9/10 of the law,
but not when an employee possesses something that the employer gave
him to use as the tools of the trade. Just because an employer lets
you drive a company car doesn't mean its yours. Likewise with a
baseball; the employer may have surrendered possession of it, but not
ownership.
Of course, if the contract provided that employees get to keep some
property, that would be enforceable. Likewise, there might be implicit
terms of the contract that flow from industry custom. (If I recall
correctly, there's been some debate about whether fans are entitled to
keep balls that they catch; the theory there would be this sort of
custom.) But I highly doubt that there's anything like that here -- I
think the Major League Baseball spokesman was mistaken or misquoted.
Naturally, if property law scholars or baseball convention experts
think I'm mistaken on this, I welcome their corrections. But I'm
pretty sure that the team is in the right here, and Mientkiewicz in
the wrong.
References
1. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1961594
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