Honor Code Committee v. Fried Chicken Thieves
72 U.Va. 655 (2020)
Wunderli, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which -insert names here- join.
Did the two students who stole an entire tray of Michie Tavern fried chicken from the free food table violate UVA Law’s esteemed Honor Code? Or is this just good ol’ fashioned free food table shenanigans?
The Honor Code is one of the most highly touted virtues of UVA. Never mind the foreboding warning about thieves and hiding your belongings displayed so prominently upon entering the library. This is a school where people are expected to be honest, and people frequently post on GroupMe about finding a lost textbook or cash on Grounds, which is often followed by a smattering of likes and praise. While we lambast other T14 schools for excessive gunnery and their getting-ahead-at-all-costs mentality, here at UVA Law we are different. We help each other, look out for each other, and wish success upon our peers. There is one arena, however, in which a certain amount of gamesmanship has been allowed to go on mostly unopposed: The Law School free food table. Much as in baseball, where a certain amount of sign-stealing and tomfoolery can be shrugged aside and even laughed at, there comes a point when, like the Houston Astros, one can take things a little too far.
On the night of February 4, two students (names are withheld out of concern for their safety) walked away with an entire tray of Michie Tavern fried chicken at approximately 6:15 p.m. from the free food table. The tray was full, with some estimates from eyewitnesses putting the total amount in controversy between five and ten pounds. The students walked away triumphant and laughing, like two kids who knew they took a little too much Halloween candy from the blind old lady across the street. Trying to avoid excessive onlookers, the giddy law students snuck out the back doors by Caplin Auditorium. Ari Anderson ’21 tried briefly to pursue them, but it was in vain, and the chicken was never seen again.
The rules surrounding the free food table have been briefly touched on by this Court,[1] although a firm line has yet to be drawn both out of respect for the common sense of UVA Law students and deference to the legislature. In Hungry 1L v. Hungry 3L, 68 U.Va. 220 (2013), this Court decided in favor of the 3L who took the last three pieces of Mellow Mushroom pizza, holding that (1) it is better that one student be filled than two students be only partially full, and (2) because free food is regulated mainly by luck and happenstance, a 3L has no duty to preserve food for anyone else after him as long as it is possessed and consumed in good faith. Later, in a split opinion in Honor Code Committee v Opportunistic 1L, 70 U.Va. 124 (2017), this Court upheld the right of a student to take home a gallon jug of milk and half a box of cookies at 9:45 p.m. that had been sitting there for over an hour, holding that the student, having seen the cookies and milk and knowing how long it was sitting there, gained a rightful claim to the items through adverse possession. Free food is aplenty at the Law School for those who seek it, and previous decisions have reflected the notion that an individual, by his own industry, has a protected right to obtain as much or as little as he sees fit without the interference of onerous restrictions. (See, e.g. Diversity Organizations v. That White Guy, 64 U.Va. 404 (2016), holding that one can obtain free food at any public event as long as she stays for the majority of the meeting, regardless of whether her sole intention is to eat a free lunch, or whether she is a member of the club or organization).
These facts before us, however, have taken basic free food principles and turned them into something monstrous, and it is for this reason the Court of Petty Appeals granted certiorari and this case is before us today. The prosecution argues that the two students who hijacked the Michie Tavern chicken and took it home, thereby depriving other law students of the enjoyment and benefits of the free food table, blatantly disregarded the third of the Honor Code’s three basic tenets: Do not steal. We agree. Although there is no limit imposed by this Court on how much one can consume from the free food table in the moment, there are certain undeniable restraints on what one can and cannot do with free food on the free food table. And while there are certain limited circumstances in which taking items not intended for immediate consumption is permissible, given that the act in question took place at peak dinner hours, and Michie Tavern fried chicken is a highly sought-after commodity, these two students must be held accountable for their grievous act. If acts like this continue to go unpunished, the whole institution of the free food table will be obliterated, and various clubs and groups will feel inclined to take the extra food home themselves, rather than leave it out for the voracious vultures of hungry law students who throng the free food table at the first sight, smell, or sound of sustenance. The free food table must live on, and the basic rights of access to the free food table must be protected.
The defense, citing Eight Cartons, argues that once the free food has been left on the table, it is abandoned property and anyone who wants to can lay claim to all or part of what remains based on her own volition and moral conscience. The defense argues that previous cases pertaining to the free food table provide a precedent for this, and although taking the fried chicken may not be morally sound or the right thing to do, it is well within the bounds set by this Court and the basic assumptions of free food.
We, however, draw a firm distinction between abandoned property and property intended for the use of the public as a whole, as is the case here. Although one can enter Costco and try as many different samples as she desires without the slightest intention to purchase the food items, it is a different matter entirely to take the entire sample tray and leave the store. And while one can enter Dean Davies’s snack room frequently to satisfy one’s candy and Goldfish cravings, one cannot take the entire bowl of Goldfish or candy and bring it to wherever one pleases. There are lines to be drawn, and depriving other law students of an entire tray of Michie Tavern fried chicken goes beyond self-serving gamesmanship of the free food table and into the territory of a high crime and Honor Code infraction. While this Court does not have the power or enforcement mechanisms to bestow Honor Code violations upon constituents of the Law School, this Court would like nothing more than to see these two students tried in front of a jury composed of mostly undergrads frat bros, as they debate whether this offense constitutes an Honor Code violation warranting dismissal from the school.
In conclusion, although this Court in the past has followed a general rule upholding the rights of students to game the Law School’s free food according to their will and pleasure, the facts of this case compel us to rule the two Michie Tavern fried chicken thieves guilty of first-degree free food table pilfery, as well as a potential Honor Code infraction to be decided in front of a tribunal of hungover undergrads. The rights of the many will not be infringed upon by the unrestrained impulses of the few.
VANDERMEULEN, J. Dissenting, In which Justice Luk joins.
Because the majority blatantly disregards our own precedent holding in Eight Cartons, I respectively dissent. The majority dispenses with that case’s clear holding, articulated famously by Justice Ranzini, “In the case of food abandonment and placement on ‘free food tables’ and other customary loci of disposal and dispersion, that placement, in some cases, may create a presumption of intention to abandon to the free consumption of such clarity as to approach to irrefutably.” The majority, in its quest to achieve a favorable outcome against admittedly unsympathetic defendants, does away with this ancient rule. I would not so lightly throw our Court’s precedents to the wind.
I dissent.
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nw7cz@virginia.edu
cl3eh@virginia.edu
[1] See, Students of University of Virginia, the Federalist Society v. Eight Cartons of “Firehouse” Submarine Sandwiches, A Cask of Coca-Cola, and One Bowl of Pickles and Relishes, More or Less, 68 U.Va. 976 (2018).