But how do you prove that. And even if you prove it, would it hold in court since the food was stolen?
Even if that were the case (which I doubt), why is that wrong? On what planet is it OK to defend the actions of the thief?
edit: If he would have poisoned the food and the thief died, would that be ok?
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that if he did purposely contaminate the food in order to get back at the thief, instead of just talking to him about it, the talk with HR seems justified.
No, self defense is one reason.
And as someone that also loves super spicy foods to the point that I eat whole peppers raw, anyone that is brave enough to eat my food is welcome to try.
If your body can't take the heat, you shouldn't be eating my food.
This is no different than if a celiac food thief started eating someone elses food that contained gluten. Its not up to the person that brought food to make sure their food never contained things allergic to everyone in the office. The thief should keep their mitts off something they don't know might hurt them.
This person sounds like they had an allegic reaction to capsacin. They also hopefully learnt that stealing food might mean they'll trip up their reaction. And in the end, they learnt that filing complaints with the HR person you're sleeping with might end up with both of you being fired.
In the US the law allows for you to make the case of self defense, it is a defense for violations of the law. I.E. it is always illegal to kill someone, but it is a defense if you kill someone who was trying to kill you..
Things like bobby traps, or poisoning your food against a thief would not be legal under American law. For example I can not setup a series of Automated Gun Turrents in my home to kill anyone that breaks in, but I could (in some states) shoot someone myself if they break in.
In a food theft case as an individual could in fact assault someone possibly even commit battery against someone in order to prevent the from stealing my lunch but I could not say put bobby trap that could cause physical harm to them on the lunch
My use of "we" was merely meant to indicate that our society, through the apparatus of our legislators, has decided that our society is justified in doing harm to certain classes of people and has set up mechanisms for doing this. I was not using "we" in the "me and my immediate peers" sense.
But more directly relevant, does the thief have no agency?
Unless their plan for revenge started years back when they started slowly building up their tolerance and taste for spicy food, I really don't see how that's even close to the most plausible explanation.
And more importantly: does it matter? If you come down to it, we don't even know if the writer exists at all. It's just an hypothetical event that serves as fodder for discussion.