''Ghen v. Rich'', 8 F. 159 (1881), is an American

property law Property law is the area of law that governs the various forms of ownership in real property (land) and personal property. Property refers to legally protected claims to resources, such as land and personal property, including intellectual pro ...

case from the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts involving ownership of a dead

whale Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and ...

. The case is frequently used to illustrate the difficulties of establishing "

possession Possession may refer to: Law * Dependent territory, an area of land over which another country exercises sovereignty, but which does not have the full right of participation in that country's governance * Drug possession, a crime * Ownership * ...

" and

ownership Ownership is the state or fact of legal possession and control over property, which may be any asset, tangible or intangible. Ownership can involve multiple rights, collectively referred to as title, which may be separated and held by different ...

under the

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...

Parties

*Ghen was a whaler who operated out of Massachusetts. He killed the whale in question. *Ellis was the person who found the killed whale on the beach and auctioned it. *Rich was the buyer of the whale from Ellis; Rich processed the whale into oil and other by-products.

Facts and holding

This 1881 case decided ownership of a dead finback

(''

Balaenoptera physalus ''Balaenoptera'' () is a genus of rorquals containing eight extant species. ''Balaenoptera'' comprises all but two of the extant species in its family (the humpback whale and gray whale); the genus is currently polyphyletic, with the two afore ...

''). The whale was killed by the libellant (plaintiff) Ghen's

bomb lance A bomb lance is a projectile weapon used in whaling to injure and kill the object of the hunt. As the name implies, it does its work by explosively detonating once it has embedded itself into a whale. The conditions of whale hunting in the arctic ...

. The whale washed up on the shore 17 miles from

Cape Cod Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...

and was found by Ellis, who then

auction An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition ex ...

ed off the whale to Rich, the defendant. Finback whales generally sink after being killed, and it takes time for the whale to resurface. According to the custom of the time, dead whales were retrieved from the shore after 2–3 days, and the finder identified the

whaling Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution. It was practiced as an organized industry ...

company that had made the kill from the unique mark of the bomb lance. The finder would then notify the whaling company by communicating with Provincetown and in return receive a finder's fee. In this case, it was unclear whether the whaler or the person who discovered the washed up whale owned the

animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...

. The U.S. District Court of Massachusetts decided that it was unreasonable to expect the whaler to wait for the whale to return to the surface and therefore the whaler who killed the whale retained his claim to the property according to the custom under the prior common law and case law. The trial judge found, "If the fisherman does all that is possible to do to make the animal his own, that would seem to be sufficient o give that fisherman full ownership" Request for trover of the whale granted to Ghen.''Ghen v. Rich'', 8 Fed. 159 (1881)

Images

File:Bomb Lance Harpoon for whales.jpg, Bomb lance whaling

harpoon A harpoon is a long spear-like instrument and tool used in fishing, whaling, seal hunting, sealing, and other marine hunting to catch and injure large fish or marine mammals such as seals and whales. It accomplishes this task by impaling the t ...

Image:Captured fin whale.jpg, A

finback whale The fin whale (''Balaenoptera physalus''), also known as finback whale or common rorqual and formerly known as herring whale or razorback whale, is a cetacean belonging to the parvorder of baleen whales. It is the second-longest species of ce ...

caught circa 1912 File:Bomb_lance_gun.gif, Whaling gun at the New Bedford Whaling Museum

References

External links

Case Brief for Ghen v. Rich at Lawnix.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ghen V. Rich United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts cases Personal property law of the United States Whaling in the United States

Parties

Facts and holding

Images

See also

References

External links