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Comment by markpapadakis | Hacker News Reader

Looks like the owner didn’t do this gracefully and didn’t care much about the significance of the Art to its creators and others who appreciated it likely way more than he did. That’s not very nice. On the other hand, if it is indeed his property he should have the right to do what he wants with it. Unless there was a contract of some kind, not a lawyer, I don’t understand how the judge could have sided with the artists who themselves were on a private property and ended up making claims to said property. Aren’t judges supposed to be impartial and make decisions based on the letter of the law ? Though I suppose the law in the us may protect the artists in this case.

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> if it is indeed his property he should have the right to do what he wants with it.

The general principle is that you can do what you want with your property, but you must pay for any damages you cause in doing so.

The important question is whether you did cause those damages (maybe it was someone else's fault, or maybe the damages were inevitable and would have happened regardless of your action or inaction, or maybe you acted in good faith like any other person would have) which gives judges plenty to think about.

A better way to frame this would be to consider if the artists were sculptors who were allowed to leave their sculptures for free on this property. Pieces of art that are not attached to the building make it more clear that destroying the art would leave the building owner liable for damages.

Similarly, the artists who painted murals should have had the opportunity to remove their property from the building, which seems to be what they are arguing.

A verbal contract still counts as a contract though, so if the property owner had a verbal agreement that the artwork would not be destroyed, and he violated that agreement, I think it makes sense that he is liable for the damages. Seems somewhat similar to destroying a painting a tenant had hung up, you have to give them the opportunity to remove it first.

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