## Facts

- James Eaton left a pocketbook on a desk provided for customers inside a Boston bank and departed.
- Edward B. Kincaid, a 16-year-old bank clerk making a deposit, saw the pocketbook on the desk as he was leaving and took it.
- Kincaid attempted to catch Eaton immediately, then took the pocketbook to his employer’s office, where it was opened and found to contain valuable papers (including notes, a U.S. bond, lottery tickets) and items bearing Eaton’s name.
- Over the next two days, Kincaid tried multiple times to locate Eaton at Eaton’s business but could not find him.
- Kincaid left the pocketbook with a bank teller to deliver it to whoever inquired for it.
- Eaton published a newspaper advertisement offering “One hundred and ten dollars reward” for return of a “Lost” pocketbook to the newspaper office.
- After learning of the advertisement, Kincaid retrieved the pocketbook from the bank and delivered it to Eaton, demanding the $110 reward; Eaton refused, offering $10 and asserting Kincaid had no right to take the pocketbook from the bank desk.

## Issues

1. Whether a pocketbook intentionally placed on a bank desk and forgotten is “mislaid” rather than “lost” for purposes of determining a “finder’s” rights.
2. Whether a person who takes such mislaid property from the bank’s desk qualifies as the “finder” contemplated by a general reward offer for a “lost” item.
3. Whether the trial court erred by instructing the jury that the property was “lost” and that Kincaid was entitled to the reward upon return.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts sustained Eaton’s exceptions and set aside the plaintiff’s verdict.
- The court held the pocketbook was mislaid, not lost, because it was placed on the bank desk and then forgotten.
- A customer who takes mislaid property from the place where it was left is not the “finder” within the meaning of a reward offer addressed to the “finder” of a “lost” item.
- The trial judge’s instructions treating the property as lost and directing entitlement to the reward were erroneous; Eaton was not liable for the $110 reward.

## Legal Principles

- Mislaid property (intentionally placed and then forgotten) is treated differently from lost property (involuntarily parted with); this distinction affects possessory rights and duties.
- When property is mislaid in a business premises, the occupier of the premises has the superior right to hold it as custodian for the true owner, rather than an incidental customer acquiring finder’s rights.
- A unilateral reward offer is enforceable only by a person who performs the requested act in the capacity contemplated by the offer; an offer to the “finder” of a “lost” item does not extend to one who merely takes mislaid property from the premises where it was left.
- An owner’s use of “lost” in a reward advertisement does not expand contractual liability beyond circumstances that legally constitute a “finding” of lost property.

## Conclusion

The court ruled that a pocketbook left on a bank desk was mislaid and remained subject to the bank’s custodial claim for the owner; therefore, a customer who took it was not the “finder” contemplated by the reward offer and could not recover the advertised reward.


Kincaid v. Eaton, 98 Mass. 139 (Mass. 1867)