Cops in the US get off on forcing their will on others.
It's perfectly acceptable to violate a contract. It doesn't matter you're not a fan of this. As long as you follow through with the terms of violating it.
> Breach of contract is not a crime or even a tort. Punitive damages are generally not an available remedy. The only remedies are to make the non-breaching party whole. The main theory behind this rule is that the law should not punish economically efficient breach.
The contract was not in the article but we can assume that it would be whatever financial compensation would be to make them whole. That's something they offered but the other party kept making threats that they would be criminally charged, even though the article states it was within their rights to not sell the goat.
IANAL but I can't imagine what permitted the police to be involved.
Every contract comes with its invisible body of law attached. For purchase and sale contracts, particularly those involving livestock auctions, property law comes into play. Withholding someone else’s property is criminal. The police showed discretion in not charging the family. But recovery is totally within their remit.
If they were careless and a wild animal killed the goat, theyd not of unconditionally committed a crime, theyd only need to make the other party whole.
Yes. Same way if I sell a car and then a tree falls on it, I didn’t commit fraud. But if I sell it and then refuse to deliver, the cops can execute a search-and-seizure warrant. Intent matters.
If you never deliver it, maybe that’s arguable but even then it could often be considered theft.
Perhaps the third party needs to be made whole, also. IANAL but paying off contracts is extremely common.
You are either being voluntarily ignorant or pedantic, I’m not sure which, but of course it doesn’t matter if I’m a fan of it. You know who also is a fan of enforcing contracts? The state, when they fund an agricultural program you sell an animal through and then don’t hold up your end of the bargain.
Counties are creatures of states. In some states, they’re jurisdictional boundaries. In California, they’re administrative entities [1]. (Cities, on the other hand, have jurisdictional characteristics.)
[1] https://www.counties.org/general-information/county-structur...
They're the executive, not the judicative. A judge would've had to make this assertion, which clearly didn't happen as they didn't have a warrant.
The officers still drove all over the state into a different jurisdiction (while using taxpayers money). They likely could've gotten the goat without making it into such a shit show, that's exactly the point I was trying to make.
If my car is stolen and I see it in someone’s garage, I absolutely expect the police to do something about it. In this case, the facts about lawful ownership were straightforward.
Purchase and sale of livestock has a deep body of law attached.
Judicial involvement isn’t always necessary, though either side can petition its review. (These cops had a warrant, by the way [1].) In this case, the parents waited until after the auction, after the seizure and after the slaughter to do that.
[1] https://dig.abclocal.go.com/kgo/PDF/2022-08-31-Complaint.pdf
Clearly not, otherwise we wouldn’t be reading about it in the news. This was a civil dispute. One party is of the opinion that they bought a goat and the other party is of the opinion that they haven’t sold it. This is where you need a court to decide who is right and who is wrong.
Even if she had not been, there was a good faith dispute, under which circumstances destruction of the disputed property is not the sort of thing that a court would allow. Which is why police need to not play cowboy. By the way, if your car is stolen and you see it in somebody's garage, the police are NOT just going to grab it and hand it back to you. They'll impound it until things are settled.
Complaint: https://dig.abclocal.go.com/kgo/PDF/2022-08-31-Complaint.pdf
The complaint leaves this far from settled.
> why police need to not play cowboy
They got a warrant [1].
> if your car is stolen and you see it in somebody's garage, the police are NOT just going to grab it and hand it back to you
I have recovered my phone from someone’s house with the help of police. They coöperated and in exchange I didn’t press charges. Had they not, I would have pressed, they’d have been arrested and sure, a court would have been involved. To the extent the police acted outside their authority, it was in not arresting.
[1] https://dig.abclocal.go.com/kgo/PDF/2022-08-31-Complaint.pdf page 9
They had no warrant to search or seize the goat from the farm that it was at [1].
[1] https://dig.abclocal.go.com/kgo/PDF/2022-08-31-Complaint.pdf page 11
If Sonoma Farm resisted the police, sure, there might be a Fourteenth Amendment claim in respect of the search. There is no indication they did. That makes the seizure totally valid.
The auction was not legally conducted, there was no actual transfer of ownership, and in any case what the auction falsely represented to the buyer that it had the right to sell was some meat, not a goat. You are making "factual" assertions without bothering to check them.
Complaint: https://dig.abclocal.go.com/kgo/PDF/2022-08-31-Complaint.pdf
A judge executed a warrant for the seizure of the animal.
The parents told 4-H they changed their mind right before the auction, but the confiscation happened well after [1].