Facts
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VPI) leased a large computer system and allocated computer time costs internally to departments.
- Students were permitted to use the computer only with department authorization; authorized users received lock-box keys to retrieve computer print-outs.
- Charles Walter Lund, a VPI graduate student whose dissertation required extensive computer use, lacked proper authorization because his advisor did not secure it.
- Lund obtained access by acquiring multiple lock-box keys issued to others and using corresponding accounts to submit computer jobs and retrieve print-outs.
- After complaints about unauthorized departmental charges, Lund was questioned; he initially denied computer use, later admitted it, surrendered seven lock-box keys, and said other students had given them to him.
- A search of Lund’s apartment produced a large quantity of computer cards and print-outs.
- The computer-center director estimated unauthorized computer use at up to $26,384.16 using internal accounting and production costs.
Issues
- Whether unauthorized computer operation time and computer-center personnel services, or mere unauthorized “use” of the computer, are “goods and chattels” or “property which may be the subject of larceny” under Virginia larceny and false-pretense statutes incorporating common-law larceny concepts.
- Whether the Commonwealth proved that the computer print-outs (and related tangible items) had value of at least $100 to support grand larceny.
Decision
- The Supreme Court of Virginia reversed the conviction and quashed the indictment.
- Labor, services, and unauthorized computer time (and the “use” of a computer) were not property subject to larceny or larceny by false pretenses under the then-existing Virginia statutes.
- The Commonwealth failed to prove the required value for grand larceny because production cost was not a proper measure of the print-outs’ value, and the evidence showed no market or actual value beyond scrap paper.
Legal Principles
- Virginia larceny statutes incorporating common-law larceny require a taking and carrying away of “goods and chattels” (tangible property) with intent permanently to deprive the owner.
- Larceny by false pretenses requires a knowingly false representation of an existing fact that induces the victim to part with money or other property that may be the subject of larceny, with intent to defraud.
- Absent a specific statute, labor and services are not “property” subject to larceny or false pretenses because they cannot be taken and carried away.
- Unauthorized “use” of another’s chattel, without a taking of the chattel itself, is not larceny under statutes limited to “goods and chattels.”
- For grand larceny valuation, the prosecution must prove market value or, if none exists, actual value; production cost or internal accounting charges are not sufficient without evidence of the tangible item’s value.
Conclusion
The court set aside Lund’s grand larceny conviction because the indictment relied on computer time and personnel services that were not larceny property under Virginia law at the time, and because the Commonwealth did not prove that the tangible print-outs (or other items) had the $100 value required for grand larceny.