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Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 22 days ago)
35,707 posts, read 18,065,864 times
Reputation: 50764
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Malloric
That's incorrect at least in most states, or rather it's more nuanced. The differentiation is in ongoing support or gift. Personal property provided for ongoing support remains the property of the parent or guardian. Say your bedroom furniture. As a kid, that's your parents furniture most likely as it wasn't given as a gift. Likewise when you go shopping for school supplies or clothes. That gets a bit grey area but generally those would be seen as ongoing support rather than a gift. They're the parents.
Gifts or inheritance are different. They are the possession of the minor. If you give your child an iPhone for Christmas, you gave them the iPhone. Technically you no longer have any right to take away the phone just like you can't take away the the sweater you gave them for Christmas present. Those are technically the possession of the child.
In this case, the court's ruling was the phone was the property of the daughter as it was a gift which nullifies the issue. The father didn't own the phone so it's not like he can complain when it gets taken away. The daughter potential could. In practice, however, minors have very few rights. While the daughter could make a criminal complaint and would legally be in her right to do so, those rights are generally ignored by the legal system. But the daughter didn't make a criminal complaint about it so there's really nothing for them to do except drop the case. At most all they could really do is ask the daughter if she wants to file criminal charges. Maybe they did do that and she didn't. More likely they didn't as a minor's legal rights usually get ignored.
Inheritances that are held in trust by the court until a child reaches majority are one thing.
Parents own the child's property is the thing.
You can google it.
If this phone truly were the property of the child, the court would have said well then give it back to her. The mother herself wouldn't have been allowed to take it from her.
They ruled it's the daughter's property, so the mother could legally take it.
Do you see how that agrees with me? Therefore, the daughter in fact does not have the property rights for the phone, since it's completely fine for the mother to take it and that's not considered stealing. That's considered ok - it's not truly the "property" of a minor, if a parent can legally take it.
Inheritances that are held in trust by the court until a child reaches majority are one thing.
Parents own the child's property is the thing.
You can google it.
If this phone truly were the property of the child, the court would have said well then give it back to her. The mother herself wouldn't have been allowed to take it from her.
They ruled it's the daughter's property, so the mother could legally take it.
Do you see that? Therefore, the daughter in fact does not have the property rights for the phone, since it's completely fine for the mother to take it and that's not considered stealing. That's considered ok - it's not truly the "property" of a minor, if a parent can legally take it.
No, it's the property of the child and the mom would have no legal right to take it. Practically, it rarely comes up. Courts usually ignore it as they do most of a minor's rights.
Minor goes to live with the grandparents and wants her personal property, a horse. Parents refuse. Court steps in and horse goes to Nebraska with the daughter. Parents sue for return of the horse and lose. Horse is the daughter's. They don't have any custodial right to keep it from going to Nebraska.
That case is more clear cut as there's a title to the horse and it's clearly on its face the property of the minor. It's her horse. An iPad has that ambiguity as there's no title. Was it a Christmas present and therefore a gift? It's the kid's iPad. Legally, you couldn't take it away. On the other hand some private schools now require students to have an iPad. If you bought the iPad for that use, that would more suggest ongoing support. If the kid got bad grades, you could of course take the iPad away every day when he came back from school.
But that's just legality. Reality is different. Courts seldom involve themselves in that sort of dispute and just ignore the minor's rights. It doesn't really come up all that often anyway. Say when I was a kid I bought a computer with my own wages. Well, they're not really my wages and that means the computer doesn't belong to me. It belongs to my parents as that's who my wages legally belong to (exception for entertainment eg Coogan Law). Legally, I didn't buy the computer with my own money. My parents allowed me to buy it with their money for my ongoing support. Now if my aunt gave my a computer as a gift it would be mine. If my parents gave me the computer, then you have to establish the intent. Was the intent to be a gift or was it intended for ongoing support?
Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 22 days ago)
35,707 posts, read 18,065,864 times
Reputation: 50764
Quote:
Originally Posted by Malloric
No, it's the property of the child and the mom would have no legal right to take it. Practically, it rarely comes up. Courts usually ignore it as they do most of a minor's rights.
Minor goes to live with the grandparents and wants her personal property, a horse. Parents refuse. Court steps in and horse goes to Nebraska with the daughter. Parents sue for return of the horse and lose. Horse is the daughter's. They don't have any custodial right to keep it from going to Nebraska.
That case is more clear cut as there's a title to the horse and it's clearly on its face the property of the minor. It's her horse. An iPad has that ambiguity as there's no title. Was it a Christmas present and therefore a gift? It's the kid's iPad. Legally, you couldn't take it away. On the other hand some private schools now require students to have an iPad. If you bought the iPad for that use, that would more suggest ongoing support. If the kid got bad grades, you could of course take the iPad away every day when he came back from school.
But that's just legality. Reality is different. Courts seldom involve themselves in that sort of dispute and just ignore the minor's rights.
However we want to parse this, the courts declared the phone the property of the daughter, therefore subject to be taken by the mother.
As it's written, it's not believable and no one is coming forward to address the details.
It's simply not believable - to me - that Dad called the cops and said my ex wife stole my phone. Then, without any further ado, they arrested her and tossed her in the lockup for a couple hours til she could post bail. Then, months later there was a trial date set and she appeared and the trial started and the DA suddenly realized it was the daughter's phone and it was taken away as a temporary punishment so the DA asks the judge to dismiss charges.
And all the while, the mom never mentioned that at all, and intends to give the phone back to her daughter after the punishment was over, or to the father if she never intends to return the phone to the girl.
NOT BELIEVABLE. Since none of the sides (the DA, the mom or the dad or her lawyer or the arresting cop) is coming forward with details that would make this make sense, we're left to guess.
As it's written - newspapers are not into writing every detail. They want to give you the who, what, when, where and not always, why. There are only so many column-inches available in the paper and the editor's job is to condense the reporter's story to fit.
All this talk of what does or does not belong to the parent/child is a lot of extraneous verbiage. Additionally, the paper isn't privy to all of the conversations that took place between the outraged father, the police and the gobsmacked mother; who said what to whom and when they said it.
There was no $200. iPhone - that was the amount of bail Mom needed to pay. As for the girl, I'm sure when Mommy took her phone, she called Daddy to tell him, leaving out, I'm sure, the reason Mommy took it in the first place. Mommy's doing her job. Daddy's being a jerk.
I say Mommy packs up the iPhone and FedEx's it back to Dad. Then she buys the Little Princess a TracFone which she can take back whenever the kid acts up.
Suffice it to say, after unnecessary upheaval in mom's life, daughter's life, four month old's life, and probably the father of the four month old, it's done. Except for the mom, the baby and the baby's dad, everybody else involved should be publicly shamed. Maybe bring back the stocks in the public square.
Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 22 days ago)
35,707 posts, read 18,065,864 times
Reputation: 50764
Quote:
Originally Posted by theatergypsy
As it's written - newspapers are not into writing every detail. They want to give you the who, what, when, where and not always, why. There are only so many column-inches available in the paper and the editor's job is to condense the reporter's story to fit.
All this talk of what does or does not belong to the parent/child is a lot of extraneous verbiage. Additionally, the paper isn't privy to all of the conversations that took place between the outraged father, the police and the gobsmacked mother; who said what to whom and when they said it.
There was no $200. iPhone - that was the amount of bail Mom needed to pay. As for the girl, I'm sure when Mommy took her phone, she called Daddy to tell him, leaving out, I'm sure, the reason Mommy took it in the first place. Mommy's doing her job. Daddy's being a jerk.
I say Mommy packs up the iPhone and FedEx's it back to Dad. Then she buys the Little Princess a TracFone which she can take back whenever the kid acts up.
Suffice it to say, after unnecessary upheaval in mom's life, daughter's life, four month old's life, and probably the father of the four month old, it's done. Except for the mom, the baby and the baby's dad, everybody else involved should be publicly shamed. Maybe bring back the stocks in the public square.
She was charged with misdemeanor larceny, taking property worth less than $200:
I wonder if a lot of this mix up is due to the fact that May's attorney was a court-appointed attorney? I'm going to guess the court appointed attorney had a lot more pressing cases than the hoopla over a cell phone.
I really wonder if she even did her job adequately. Ms. May might not even met her attorney until they showed up to court.
Nothing to do with her lawyer, he can't get it dismissed until it goes before a judge (where apparently it was dismissed). Lay the blame on the prosecutor who wasted time and taxpayer money.
Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 22 days ago)
35,707 posts, read 18,065,864 times
Reputation: 50764
Quote:
Originally Posted by NorthofHere
Nothing to do with her lawyer, he can't get it dismissed until it goes before a judge (where apparently it was dismissed). Lay the blame on the prosecutor who wasted time and taxpayer money.
That's not true. There are pre-trial hearings and pre-trial filings before it gets all the way to trial which is the very, very last resort in a misdemeanor case.
Sad that I actually do know this for a fact.
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