House was requisitioned for quartering soldiers for 250l/yr.
P, a soldier, found a brooch.
P gave the brooch to the police, and they gave the brooch to the D.
Procedural History
King's bench finds for P.
Issues
Does the owner of real property own an object found on the property even though the owner has never occupied the property, or is the object the property of the person who found it who was renting the property?
Holding/Rule
The owner of real property does not have the right to a lost object found on his premises if he was in actual possession of the premises at the time and did not know of the object's existence.
Reasoning
Court looks to a previous case, in which the P found money on the floor of D's shop and D refused to let P have the notes after no true owner was located.
Court found for P in that case, and did not distinguish in the holding between whether it had been found in a shop or in D's house.
Said that since D did not know about the money and was not the true owner, P had a right to it.
Some precedent seems to have gone counter to this previous case, which has been distinguished since it was a shop. However, this shouldn't be the case.
Court goes through some cases that say that if things are discovered in the owner's land, they belong to the owner.
There is no clear authority on the subject.
However, it is clear that the brooch was lost and then was found by P. D was never physically in possession of the brooch or the premises and did not know of the brooch. Therefore, P is the rightful owner.
