> Let's say a (regular) scooter or even bicycle has been sitting on the sidewalk for a couple of days. Is it illegal for me to consider it abandoned and just take it?
In California, if you find it and choose to take charge of it, you become a depositary for the legal owner. Additionally, if it is worth $100+, and you can't locate and return it to the owner within a reasonable period, you are required to turn it into the police or sheriff depending on the jurisdiction in which it was found. It may become yours if the owner doesn't claim it from the police/sheriff within 90 days, with some additional requirements if it is worth more than $250.
If it was intentionally abandoned by the owner this doesn't apply.
The legal argument of course is that Bird has intentionally abandoned their scooters in the public way, and this is the general consensus of my many friends in the local DA offices. (Translation: they don't think it's a crime and they won't prosecute any such cases even if for some reason someone is ticketed or arrested for it.)
> The legal argument of course is that Bird has intentionally abandoned their scooters in the public way, and this is the general consensus of my many friends in the local DA offices. (Translation: they don't think it's a crime and they won't prosecute any such cases even if for some reason someone is ticketed or arrested for it.)
They clearly haven't abandoned them as that applies generally to property; if you are in fact charging rental fees, you haven't intentionally relinquished the right to control something, as you are exercising that right by charging others for the right to temporarily exercise some portion of it.
There may be rules regarding public rights of way which impact this, though the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has already rejected the claim that property left unattended on a public sidewalk is therefore abandoned and subject to deprivation when the City of Los Angeles used that as an excuse to take the goods belonging to the homeless without due process, so I think what is really going on in those DAs offices is people have made the decision “we don't like what Bird is doing so we aren't going to enforce the law when people commit crimes against them.”
As discussed elsewhere, that case is not applicable. Bird has left their former property on the public right of way intending to others to use it. If they are not locally permitted to do so, then this act constitutes abandonment. If they are permitted to do so, prosecutors won't prosecute.
In contrast, the homeless person has not left there property around for the express purpose of letting others use it.
> As discussed elsewhere, that case is not applicable. Bird has left their former property on the public right of way intending to others to use it.
Intending to rent it to others for use, yes.
> If they are not locally permitted to do so, then this act constitutes abandonment
No, it doesn't. It may constitute violation of whatever ordinance does not permit it, but the Lavan v. LA case is directly on point, that whatever regulatory powers local jurisdiction has, a property owner not intending to entirely relinquish control has not abandoned (and the state cannot without violating the due process clause of the 14th amendment treat them as having abandoned) property merely because it is unattended on a public way in violation of some local control. (They may have the right to take the property with due process from the person who remains, until that process has been given, the owner, but that's a remedy against the owner, not abandonment by the owner.)
While the law is generally built upon extending similar cases to novel situations, you're stretching too hard here to bring in case law that is too easily distinguishable from the matter at hand.
While I concede that your position is correct academically, I've successfully argued my position in court several times (pro bono, since I only take on criminal def when I believe in the case), so I'm confident that my position is correct where it matters.
And if you're ever actually practiced in the California court system, you would know that you only need to convince a single appellate judge statewide to make valuable precedent. (Because in California, a lower court can follow the precedent of any higher California appellate ruling.)
both of those cases are permitted, ZipCar explicitly rents spaces which are marked as theirs. I'm also not sure they use public parking lots, I've only encountered them in private lots and garages.
I wonder what the FMV is of a Bird scooter. These things cost about $500 new (just guessing please feel free to correct me), and with charger. But used it would be maybe $200-$300 depending on battery and aesthetic condition, and without any warranty. And then without the charger it would be worth somewhat less. Probably still over $100, but perhaps not that much.
In California, if you find it and choose to take charge of it, you become a depositary for the legal owner. Additionally, if it is worth $100+, and you can't locate and return it to the owner within a reasonable period, you are required to turn it into the police or sheriff depending on the jurisdiction in which it was found. It may become yours if the owner doesn't claim it from the police/sheriff within 90 days, with some additional requirements if it is worth more than $250.
If it was intentionally abandoned by the owner this doesn't apply.
EDIT: Source, Civil Code § 2080 et seq..