United States
In American law, a bona fide purchaser who unknowingly purchases and subsequently sells stolen goods will, at common law, be held liable in trover for the full market value of those goods as of the date of conversion. Since the true owner retains legal title, this is true even in a chain of successive bona fide purchasers (i.e., the true owner can successfully sue the fifth bona fide purchaser in trover). However, there is a remedy for successive bona fide purchasers. If the jurisdiction recognises an implied warranty that the seller has title to the property (Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) in the United States), the bona fide purchaser can sue the seller for breach of that implied warranty. There are also other various exceptions traditionally recognised in courts of equity, which likely gave rise to the idea embodied in the modern UCC.
This rule is exemplified in circumstances such as the Holocaust reconciliation movement where property, such as works of art, that was stolen or confiscated by the Nazis is returned to the families of the original owners. Anyone who purchased the art or thought they had ownership are denied any rights over the litigious property due to the nemo dat rule.
There are numerous exceptions to the nemo dat rule. Legal tender, for example, does not adhere to the rule in certain circumstances. If a rogue buys goods from a bona fide merchant, that merchant will not have to return the bills to the true owner. To hold the rule to be otherwise would be disruptive to the economy and prevent the free flow of goods in an economy. The same may be true of other "negotiable" instruments, such as cheques. If a thief A steals a cheque from B and sells it to innocent C, C is entitled to deal with the cheque, and A cannot claim it back from C (though the name appearing on the cheque may affect the validity of such a transfer).
Another matter is the transfer of other legal rights normally granted by ownership. In 2011, a US District judge ruled that a woman who had purchased a stolen laptop could sue a device tracking company for invasion of privacy stemming from recording software installed on the laptop to facilitate its recovery after being stolen. This ruling demonstrated that bona fide purchasers are entitled to some rights by virtue of possession alone, or that nemo dat is superseded by the bona fide purchaser's right to privacy.
Read more about this topic: Nemo Dat Quod Non Habet
Famous quotes related to united states:
“Some of the offers that have come to me would never have come if I had not been President. That means these people are trying to hire not Calvin Coolidge, but a former President of the United States. I can’t make that kind of use of the office.... I can’t do anything that might take away from the Presidency any of its dignity, or any of the faith people have in it.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“What lies behind facts like these: that so recently one could not have said Scott was not perfect without earning at least sorrowful disapproval; that a year after the Gang of Four were perfect, they were villains; that in the fifties in the United States a nothing-man called McCarthy was able to intimidate and terrorise sane and sensible people, but that in the sixties young people summoned before similar committees simply laughed.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“The real charm of the United States is that it is the only comic country ever heard of.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Television is an excellent system when one has nothing to lose, as is the case with a nomadic and rootless country like the United States, but in Europe the affect of television is that of a bulldozer which reduces culture to the lowest possible denominator.”
—Marc Fumaroli (b. 1932)
“I incline to think that the people will not now sustain the policy of upholding a State Government against a rival government, by the use of the forces of the United States. If this leads to the overthrow of the de jure government in a State, the de facto government must be recognized.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)