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And it is not just a current mood in the US ... let us not forget Great Northern Ry v Swaffield (1872) LR 9 Exch 132, where a duty like that described by Robert was probably essential to the result, along with "ordinary feelings of humanity" ... the question of a lien was left open but the railway successfully sued the owner for the cost of care. It is usually understood as resting in part on the fact that it was a voluntary bailment by the defendant to the plaintiff. But Pollock B's words are apposite in the case of any duty to care for the animal: "... if there were that duty without the correlative right, it would be a manifest injustice." A legal duty on the plaintiff controls officiousness problems.

Lionel

On Monday, December 8, 2003, at 11:56 AM, axelrod wrote:

agree that common law abandonment would preclude any lien: as to the owner getting back the animal without paying, i imagine that in the current US mood of sensitivity or sentimentality to animals, the finder would be given a medal as well as a lien rather than characterized as a mere interloper