[NHCOLL-L:2059] RE: stolen museum specimens

[Barker at mpm.edu]

Dennis--

Sounds bad, no matter what the outcome.  When was the material taken from
the museums, and when did the dealer receive it?  Depending on what approach
you take, the two main issues you'll be dealing with may be the statute of
limitations and rules of adverse possession.  Marie Malaro goes through both
in her *A Legal Primer on Managing Museum Collections* (Smithsonian, my
edition is 1985, but I think it's been reissued).  

Case law on the applicability of statute of limitations in instances like
this varies.  Some courts hold that the clock starts ticking from the time
the legal owner asks for the return of property (e.g., Menzel v. List),
meaning that the dealer would have little protecton, while others require
that the legal owner have shown due diligence in trying to locate or recover
the material within the defined statute of limitations (which might be a
problem if the collections have been missing from the museums for a long
time without efforts by the museums to recover them). Counsel could probably
help you sort this out, but one question would be whether the museums had
cause to think the material was stolen before the biologist conveyed it to
the dealer--until then they may have assumed he was slow, but not dishonest.
If they had no reason to assume it was stolen, I think there'd be stronger
legal grounds for action (or at least a longer clock for instituting such
action).  

Adverse possession is the means by which an individual can get perfect title
to property that doesn't necessarily belong to him or her.  It generally
requires that the new "owner" claim ownership in opposition to any other
claims, and publicly, visibly hold the collection without challenge for some
set period of time.  Tough to do, espcially in cases like this.  Many courts
only use adverse possession for real rather than personal property.

Hope this helps.

Alex

------------

Alex W. Barker
Vice President for Collections and Research
& Chair, Anthropology Department
Milwaukee Public Museum
800 West Wells Street
Milwaukee, WI 53233
414-278-2786  fax 414-278-6100
barker at mpm.edu  www.mpm.edu
    


-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Paulson [mailto:dpaulson at UPS.EDU]
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 2:23 PM
To: NHCOLL-L at lists.yale.edu
Subject: [NHCOLL-L:2057] stolen museum specimens


Hello, all.

Just recently an antique dealer in California was found to possess a 
collection and much other material formerly in the possession of a 
very unscrupulous biologist who, while studying a group of 
dragonflies 20 years ago, borrowed and didn't return (and also just 
plain stole) specimens from a number of museums. My colleagues who 
visited the dealer found the type specimens of at least one dragonfly 
in this collection (from a European museum) and are trying to get 
them back. Unfortunately, the dealer - equally disreputable, I'm 
afraid - thinks he can get a lot of money for this collection and 
won't cooperate at all in repatriating specimens that belong to 
various museums. There's no way anyone is going to pay the amount he 
wants for the collection, as much of it has been destroyed by fungus 
and insects, so we are trying to find out what kind of legal action 
we can bring to bear against him to at least get back the museum 
specimens. Along with specimens, he borrowed priceless correspondence 
between two seminal dragonfly workers from 1879-1891, and this 
material is probably in the possession of the dealer.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm looking for precedents, when 
others have stolen from museums or not returned loans. How have 
museums gone about pursuing unreturned loans? What kind of legal 
action has been taken? What agencies might be involved in the 
enforcement (local law enforcement? FBI?)?

I think it would be good to post any responses to the entire group, 
for general benefit (unless you'd rather not publicize any 
particulars). Thanks in advance.

Dennis
-- 
Dennis Paulson, Director                           phone 253-879-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History                 fax 253-879-3352
University of Puget Sound                       e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
1500 N. Warner, #1088
Tacoma, WA 98416-1088
http://www.ups.edu/biology/museum/museum.html