Comments Elsewhere

Kennedy: We each are entitled to recover money from you. But if Hoppe takes $2500 from you do I have any more legitimate a claim against him than against the casino?

I don’t know. Sometimes people who accept stolen goods certainly are obligated to return them to the owners. Sometimes they aren’t. The question is which category this case falls under. Does Hoppe know where the money comes from? And what’s he accepting the money for? It seems like both of these may be relevant to whether or not the act of accepting it makes him an accessory to the theft or not.

Stefan: Who then has a ‘right’ to any of the remaining 3 clocks? Why shouldn’t it be first-come first-serve?”

I think it should unless the claimaints make some kind of contractual agreement with each other to the contrary, and I mentioned this above. My question for Kennedy is whether, in each given case, anybody at all can lay claim on a first-come first-serve basis, or whether the class of people who can lay claim on a first-come first-serve basis is limited to the people from whom the loot was taken in the first place.