Bailment involves the temporary exchange of possession rights, but not of ownership rights of personal property. A bailee is generally an independent contractor that is hired to help transfer goods or hired for a job in which they retain temporary possession rights over personal property. If the bailee fails to transfer the goods to the owner, they are guilty of larceny. Although they can prove that they had the right to possess the property due to their employment contract, possession rights naturally expire at some point.
Possession rights may expire on the date that the goods are due to be delivered, such as truckers who deliver produce to stores. In other cases, possession rights expire after a job is completed, such as general contractors that possess their boss's equipment in order to complete a job. In any case, bailees only have possession rights for a period of time. If they fail to return the personal property to the rightful owner, they are guilty of larceny.
Truckers often have temporary possession rights of goods as they are paid to travel across the country to deliver them to the rightful owner. As a bailee, they are entitled to possess that personal property, but only for a certain length of time. In addition, they have no right to use or consume that property before it reaches its rightful owner.
The trucker could be charged with larceny in several instances. First, if the trucker fails to make the delivery and instead sells or gives away the goods, they are guilty of larceny. In addition, if the trucker utilizes or consumes the goods, such as produce, they are also guilty of larceny. Oftentimes, truckers have such large amounts of personal property that it is sometimes difficult to immediately ascertain if all of the property has been delivered to its rightful owner.
Nowadays, many trucking companies put seals on trucks so that it is obvious if the goods have been tampered with. During the eighties, it was, in fact, common for consumers to purchase goods that had "fallen off of trucks." In other words, truckers were stealing popular items, such as Christmas toys, and selling them before they reached the rightful owners, likely department stores. Technology makes this crime much less common than it had been in the past.
There are many types of bailees that take temporary possession of personal property. In all cases, however, possession of that property expires at some point. If the bailee fails to return those goods to the rightful owner or to deliver them to the new owner, they are guilty of larceny. Temporary possession rights always expire either after a period of time or at the completion of a job. Although no action may be taken to steal that property, larceny takes place simply because no action was taken to return said property to its rightful owner.
