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I consider this to be theft...

TheGuyWithTheTacoma

Well-Known Member
This one time in high school (either 9th or 10th grade), my history teacher caught me playing with a Rubiks Cube and confiscated it. This did not sit well with me. He didn't give it back to me at the end of class and gave no hint as to when he would give it back, so before I left class to go to lunch I just took it off his desk when he wasn't looking and went on with my day...

A day or two later, my history teacher confronted me about stealing MY Rubiks Cube back and said I was lucky he didn't suspend me. My response was very "Yeah, whatever..." and I never got in trouble, nor did I ever have anymore problems with that teacher in the future. I'm pretty sure there were other times I "reacquired" personal property from a teacher who I'd felt wrongfully confiscated it, but this is the only time I can actually remember.

Just about everybody I have shared this story with has agreed with me and my actions.
 
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Where you went wrong was in not investigating the school or district's official policies over the confiscation of a student's property by a teacher or administrator, and for how long. Based on existing case law, I suspect this is crucial as to which party would actually have been in the wrong and why.

Considerations that lead to defining the difference between theft as a crime, and wrongful confiscation being a tort- a civil wrong. Provided of course that you are willing to pursue such a case in a civil court of law as a plaintiff. Though in the case of a toy like Rubik's Cube, your local courts would have initially kept such a case confined to the realm of small claims short of throwing the claim out altogether as being just too petty.

Apparently a somewhat similar issue was appealed and adjudicated just a few years later by the Supreme Court of Arkansas, but over an accusation of wrongful confiscation- not theft. And in this case such rules by the school were clearly spelled out in the eyes of the court, and subsequently the decision went in favor of the teacher and not the student or his parents over the temporary confiscation of his cellphone.

FindLaw's Supreme Court of Arkansas case and opinions.
 
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A modern-day example would be that if my pickup truck ever got towed for being illegally parked, I would report it stolen and take every legal step to make things very unpleasant for the tow truck driver and the towing company he or she worked for.

Care to rephrase that? If you and law enforcement both acknowledge that your vehicle was illegally parked to begin with, it pretty much precludes any accusation of unlawfully towing the vehicle away.

In most cases I think you'll find state laws dictate that accusations of unlawful towing must be brought before a judge- not accosting the towing company or their employees, which might invite further legal difficulties. As a civil matter- not a criminal one.

Such is the case in my state:

Unlawful Towing - Civil Law Self-Help Center
 
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All in all I think you were lucky. In the Dark Ages they would have dangled you from the castle wall until you revealed the way to solve the puzzle.
 
When my youngest son was in middle school, the school confiscated his yearbook because of what someone else wrote in it. I had to go up there to demand the return of his yearbook - they were not going to return it until the end of the year. He would have missed getting the rest of his friends to sign it, not to mention the outrageous cost of yearbooks nowadays. I was furious over this. It might had been different if my son had written something bad in it (and, as I remember, the comment wasn't even that bad). Or if they offered to replace it with another.
 
It will come as no surprise to readers of this thread that educators sometimes abuse their authority!

Once my daughter in elem. school was crying before school, I said what's wrong, she said I don't know where my library book is and it's due, so I won't get any recess but just have to stand against the wall.

I said WHAT!!!???!!! and then went over to the school, who confirmed that this was their policy for overdue library books. So I got right in the librarian's face and said "You do NOT have my permission to discipline my child in this manner!! We would not pull this on an ADULT with a library fine, and you are doing it to a CHILD! ... If this continues we are looking at a lawsuit!"

That was the last I ever heard about it. I think I gave an earful to the principal, too.
 
It sounds simply as if you believe you have the right to violate particular rules/laws and that any enforcement of said rules/laws is therefore an infringement on your rights.
 
A modern-day example would be that if my pickup truck ever got towed for being illegally parked, I would report it stolen and take every legal step to make things very unpleasant for the tow truck driver and the towing company he or she worked for.
 
It sounds simply as if you believe you have the right to violate particular rules/laws and that any enforcement of said rules/laws is therefore an infringement on your rights.
Not really...

That was more than 15 years ago. I've never been arrested and have no criminal record. I do believe that certain rules laws infringe on my rights though, but it's okay to voice your disapproval of the law as long as you obey it.
 
When my youngest son was in middle school, the school confiscated his yearbook because of what someone else wrote in it. I had to go up there to demand the return of his yearbook - they were not going to return it until the end of the year. He would have missed getting the rest of his friends to sign it, not to mention the outrageous cost of yearbooks nowadays. I was furious over this. It might had been different if my son had written something bad in it (and, as I remember, the comment wasn't even that bad). Or if they offered to replace it with another.
My parents bought me the 2001 Guinness Book of World Records for Christmas in 2000. I brought it into school to read one time, and it was very popular with my classmates. In English class, I let my classmates read it, and it got passed around the room. When it was handed back to me, I found that somebody had engraved "Sex Rules" into the front cover, right over the nice glitzy part. It may have been "Sex Rocks", but it doesn't matter; I was just as annoyed. I complained to the teacher, and she was downright angry. She was unable to get the perpetrator to fess up so we never learned who it was, but she did give the class a lecture about respecting the belongings of others.
 
Care to rephrase that? If you and law enforcement both acknowledge that your vehicle was illegally parked to begin with, it pretty much precludes any accusation of unlawfully towing the vehicle away.

In most cases I think you'll find state laws dictate that accusations of unlawful towing must be brought before a judge- not accosting the towing company or their employees, which might invite further legal difficulties. As a civil matter- not a criminal one.

Such is the case in my state:

Unlawful Towing - Civil Law Self-Help Center
I don't park in handicap zones or fire zones. I've gotten two parking tickets in my whole life, and one was paid by my boss because I was on the clock when it happened and she thought it was unfair.

Both tickets were received in the same parking lot too. The bar where I used to work shared the parking lot with some financial planning firm and a county office. The people who own the bar own numerous properties, including the one the bar is located in, and rent the rest of that building out to the financial firm.

The very first time I got a ticket (back in 2013 or so) it was only ten bucks, so I paid it, and it was in the county building lot. One of the bouncers at my bar also got a ticket for parking there. We had previously been allowed to park here after 5pm, but someone bureaucrat complained and the County Emergency Services took over issuing tickets after the parking enforcement went home. It was little more than revenue generation.

The second time I got a ticket was December 2016, and particularly aggravating. The employees of the financial planning business knew what my truck looked like, knew I worked at the bar, and knew that sometimes the unreserved parking spaces are full. Regardless, they still called parking enforcement and I came out to find a $50 "Parking in a prohibited area" ticket under my wiper. There were plenty of other parking spaces available, and I wasn't there more than a couple hours. My boss paid the ticket because she felt bad, and I gave the financial planning people a piece of my mind a short time later. I have never gotten a ticket for parking there since!
 
You were right to take the Rubiks Cube back after class. The teacher confiscated it because he knew it was a distraction. He probably forgot he still had it, so you did him a favor by taking it back without disturbing him. Nobody has the right to liberate your possessions from you.
 
You were right to take the Rubiks Cube back after class. The teacher confiscated it because he knew it was a distraction. He probably forgot he still had it, so you did him a favor by taking it back without disturbing him. Nobody has the right to liberate your possessions from you.
Later on, they put it in my IEP that was I allowed to have "fidget" items during class, so it all worked out in the end!
 
If it was a matter of the teacher forgetting then it would have been better to ask for it back.
 

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