Who Is Entitled To The Money?

JAY · #1 05-28-2005, 01:58 AM

Hi everyone, I'm sure this is a fairly simple question but I'm looking for a definitive answer to it, not just a guess which is basically what my friends and I are doing. here it goes...

My one friend Erich gave my other friend Joe $10 to buy a Star Wars movie ticket in advance. However, a couple days later, after the ticket was purchased, Erich decided he no longer wanted to see the movie. So on opening night Joe still had Erich's ticket and when an avid fan came up offering $100 for an extra ticket Joe sold it to him.

Now Erich believes that the $100 should be his because he paid for the ticket so it was his property that Joe had sold. But Joe believes that Erich gave up his ticket when he decided not to go and that Erich is only intitled to the original $10 he paid for it. It's also important to know that the ticket would have been worthless after the movie was shown. So if Joe hadn't sold it Erich would have been out $10.

So who is intitled to the $100, Joe or Erich? and why?

Thanks to anybody who responds, my friends and I appreciate it.

aaron · #2 05-28-2005, 10:54 AM

Leaving the law aside for the moment, these are friends. Why don't they split the $90 profit?

JAY · #3 05-29-2005, 01:18 PM

lol, they most likely will split it. It's not that I want to know so that we can decide who gets the money, it's more to see who was right. See, both these guys are "know it alls" but over this situation they differ, both thinking they're right, and the other is wrong. I'm just curious to see who is really right.

aaron · #4 05-29-2005, 10:00 PM

Well, I'm not going to research the state law to give you a definitive answer, but my "off the top of my head" analysis is this:

Ehrich paid for the ticket. Joe didn't refund the $10 when Ehrich decided he didn't want to go. Thus it was still Ehrich's ticket.

But Joe can respond to the assertion of "You sold my ticket for $100", by asserting that the actual value of the ticket was $10, Ehrich essentially abandoned the ticket and if Joe hadn't sold it the ticket would have been worth $0, and thus Joe's claim is at best to the $10 he paid.

So they both have decent arguments.