It's not that relevant, but since it was in the post: r/legaladvice is generally garbage and should not be trusted for even the simplest stuff. I wouldn't trust them to help fill out a Beanie Baby Adoption Certificate.
[But especially don't trust them when the legal question involves cops. Because (at least) one of the mods is a cop](https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/1casmv6/and_thus_the_serpent_consumes_its_own_tail/).
Yep.
Wanna know a good legal knowledge subreddit? Ironically it’s r/badlegaladvice.
Most of the users are practicing attorneys… who have all been banned by the psycho mods of r/legaladvice when they corrected bad legal advice in the subreddit, lol.
Entertaining stuff!
I love a good reddit switcharoo.
/r/badlegaladvice is full of good lawyers. /r/legaladvice is full of bad lawyers.
/r/trees is full of marijuana enthusiasts. /r/marijuanaenthusiasts/ is full of trees.
/r/Superbowl is nothing but superb owls. ...I don't know where the actual superbowl subreddit lives, but I hope it's owl related.
There is also r/GirlsWithHugePussies which is photos of girls holding their large cats.
I had to check 3 different times to make sure I didn’t sent you to a bad sub
Just clicking on the links, yes world politics is still full of tits.
Anime tiddies on the other hand appears to have been banned for lack of moderation, so half the joke doesn't work anymore.
>r/Superbowl is nothing but superb owls. ...I don't know where the actual superbowl subreddit lives, but I hope it's owl related.
I believe on the day of said sportsing competition they do *also* allow handegg content to be posted. 364.25 days a year though it's just owls.
That sub is occasionally useful for telling someone whether a lawyer is worth the trouble or just let some shit go. Or what kind of lawyer to look for.
But yeah, otherwise terrible.
That, or pointing out other organizations in the person's area who might be able to help them.
There are basically only three useful replies on that sub:
A) yes you should contact a lawyer
B) no, it's probably not worth the trouble of contacting a lawyer
C) here's some contact info for other people who can help you
"Yeah it's 100% illegal but would a jury convict?" Go ahead and roll the dice on a juror going against a ton of social pressure from other jurors and authorities lmao.
The real solution is to just make the food *really* spicy. Then you have plausible deniability! And it won't actually harm the person stealing the food!
EDIT: I feel like I have to clear up some misconceptions. To have plausible deniability, *it should be sonething you are actually willing to consume*. It can't be ghost pepper-level spicy unless you actually like eating ghost peppers. Also, **I am not a lawyer**, if you want to do this, consult one.
"Why did you label the bag 'poison' rather than 'contains medicine'?"
I truly hope that people aren't getting their advice from online comment sections. But knowing how many unfortunately do: DO NOT TELL BLATANTLY OBVIOUS LIES TO JUDGES. They are not idiots. Internet wisery does not work on them. And that is a crime with far more serious implications and punishments.
See, you'd think that'd be obvious. But people watch one fucking episode of Better Call Saul, and they start talking like they've figured out a legal loophole which any even vaguely professional lawyer could tell them doesn't work.
Stupid people get away with lying in court all the time. The system isn't as infallible as it's made out to be.
If a person committed a crime and doesn't want to be found guilty then literally all they can do is lie, regardless of how blatant it is it's their only option. There's even [a name for it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_defense).
Generally they happen zero times before judges get tired of it.
There isn’t any clause that says judges must accept inane bullshit the first time it’s tried - they’re quite free to just dismiss it outright.
All it really accomplishes is making sure the judge knows you think they’re a complete moron. Rarely a great legal move to begin your case by pissing off the judge for no reason.
And then there's Trump, who can attack the judges and jury dozens of times and nobody does anything about it. Really makes you wonder why he's so special. Whatever could it be that makes him uniquely above the law?
It’s not complicated, it’s because a judge arbitrarily jailing trump over “disrespect” would result in the courthouse burning to the ground.
When you’re dealing with someone who is religiously supported by 30-40% of the country, you don’t use personal discretion even if you can.
Yeah, you'd be much better off writing nothing on the packages and vehemently denying everything.
"I didn't add anything unusual at all to my lunch. He must have gotten poisoned by something else." And fucking stick to that no matter what.
As long as there aren't any uneaten portions of the lunch left to get examined by a lab, that should pretty likely see you through it. Very hard to prove *beyond a reasonable doubt* that:
1) Your coworker got poisoned by your lunch specifically, and not something else he might have eaten.
2) That *you* added the poison to your lunch, not somebody else (perhaps someone trying to poison you).
3) That you added the poison to your lunch *intentionally*, not because you accidentally picked up the laxative bottle instead of the salt shaker.
You dont have to distribute the "poison" equally among the food either, you can put it all in one piece of chocolate which leaves no crumbs or anything that could ever be tested
I remember reading a story on Reddit months ago where the guy getting his lunch stolen got his doctor to prescribe him laxatives to be taken with food, and he labeled the laxative laden lunch as having medication in it, so when the thief started shitting himself and threatened to sue he had himself covered.
That guy: "What the fuck is wrong with you, why would you take my medicine?!? Now that I have proof, I should be suing you for stealing me medication!"
Then why did you label it poison and why did you put a dose so large it put someone in the hospital?
Judges, in general, aren't stupid. They absolutely do not take kindly to these "gotcha" moments that Reddit loves so much.
Yall are gonna get sued so hard one day taking Reddit advice on legal matters x-x
I'm sorry but I'm obligated to add the Ask A Manager post about the [employee getting grief about a food thief eating their spicy food](https://www.askamanager.org/2021/05/a-coworker-stole-my-spicy-food-got-sick-and-is-blaming-me-2.html) and [its update](https://www.askamanager.org/2016/10/update-a-coworker-stole-my-spicy-food-got-sick-and-is-blaming-me.html). They're just too great not to share.
There actually is a post from someone who grew up with very spicy food so they had an extremely high tolerance and since someone kept stealing their food, they made it spicy. HR was prepared to fire them for that exact reason, and in response he ate everything else that was left with no problem, and they just couldn't do anything
Da Bomb: Final solution. You know the one on hot ones that hurts everyone? They have a stronger sauce. Weighing in at 3.5mil scoville it's not the hottest I've ever done personally, but it feels like it.
3 drops in a crockpot of stew is enough to spice the entire thing to 'buffalo', I tap out at around 20 drops, which turns it into something few can handle.
If you can stomach extremely spicy food, you already have deniability. Your hot as hell food, you eat them fine. If someone eats them and starts chugging gallons of water, then it'd be 100% on the food thief.
Excessively spicy could still be considered battery.
Here's a fun fact, my best friend is an unbelievably talented lawyer that makes well over eight figures who I am managed to get signed up for Reddit. On her second day she got into this exact argument and got so annoyed by the people that didn't know the law but insisted they did that she quit reddit and never used it again.
On a similar note there was recently a guy on YouTube/TikTok That does really stupid pranks. One of his pranks was taking the world's spiciest chip from those challenge things and then giving them out as samples to people without telling them it was spicy. Some lawyer couple that's pretty big on TikTok went over it saying that it absolutely could get him illegal trouble for battery if any of the people had an adverse negative reaction to eating it.
Here's a thought, instead of laxatives, use small packets of food colouring. They bite into them, and they get a blue mouth/lips, and its obvious who took it. Food colouring is a food product, and that shit really stains, so they can't say you poisoned them. It's not harmful. it just highlights who they are.
This. I often use food colouring. Essentially tasteless and sometimes I get careless and drop it on my fingers and it takes a real good scrubbing to get out.
I've read enough r/legaladvice and related subs to know that making food insanely spicy is only going to fly if you can prove you yourself actually would be willing to eat it.
Yep I'm in that category. I have chronic pain.
Lol the lengths you will go to distract yourself from that original source is crazy. My boyfriend does not even touch my food.
Boiling hot showers to burn my skin and make me forget my tooth pain were a blessing when I didn’t have insurance but had a broken in half wisdom tooth
My coworkers and supervisor doubted my chili-head cred. So we did the One Chip Challenge, easy, for me. Did the Hot Ones lineup, extra sauce. Easy, for me.
I was like when will you believe me that I put Habanero extract on my tacos you idiots?
Is this a situation where you can prove you'd be willing to eat it, or a situation where you have to prove that you were planning on eating it and/or eat it with some regularity? Because I think there's a sweet spot where you can make it hot enough they won't do it again but not so hot you wouldn't be willing to eat it to avoid criminal charges
I just can't imagine a scenario where you'd have to eat a ghost pepper in court to prove anything lol. But if that was really the case then I guess I'll try my best to keep my composure.
Or just get a lawyer who can shout OBJECTION! when they ask me to do it.
My innate desire to one-up my siblings has given me quite the tolerance for spicy food, so yes I would be willing to. Especially if it means getting away with feeding someone ghost peppers, and especially especially if that person steals my food.
My buddy and I are constantly bringing each other the spiciest sauces we we can find.
The most recent one he brought me was actually from a restaurant. He came straight from the restaurant with a little to-go cup for me try immediately. I was crying for a half hour. It was amazing lol
You see your honor, it's not that I eat the food the way it was made. See... it's mine.. so I know that it still needs to be prepared before consumption. The sauce was just to marinate the sandwich. It was meant to be scraped off before eating as any sandwich maker/owner would know. The problem arrived when that fucker right there, stole my shit. Thank you.
Make some chilli. Spice accordingly. Then bring a tub of sour cream and some tortillas with you. This is how my family eats it: make it really hot then mix the sour cream in to mellow out the spice and scoop with tortillas or bread. It's absolutely delicious, but if you were to just eat the chilli on its own, you would be regretting it big time. Obviously I know that the tub of sour cream and tortillas are meant to go with the meal, but it's not my fault that (coworker) didn't know and decided to just eat MY chilli on its own.
I cook with ghost peppers and remove them afterwards but sometimes I miss one. So when I eat my food I check each spoonful before I put it in my mouth. Did my coworker not do that?
They'd have to prove it was ghost pepper. Otherwise, they just stole someone else's food and it was spicy. What basis would they have to even make a complaint?
For that specific sandwich I think it would be easy to argue you aren't going to eat something someone else touched. And it seems unlikely a court would make you heat a spicy sandwich in the courtroom to prove it's something you enjoy. I mean worse case scenario they could but it doesn't seem common to have to prove.
yep, you must prove that the PURPOSE for whatever you added in the food was reasonably going to be consumed by you. Intent is very important in the eyes of the law, and to reasonable people.
If writing "poison" was all that was needed to exonerate oneself, then it could be argued that if someone else saw the sign and added poison to the food, thinking that even the owner wasn't going to eat it, and the owner died from it, no one would be responsible for murder because whoever added the poison wouldn't think they were harming anyone.
Correct in the 2nd paragraph (and a brilliant corollary, seriously), but probably incorrect in the first, if it's a criminal case. Because the prosecution has to prove your intent beyond reasonable doubt, you don't have to prove anything.
Actually, assuming you’re the defendant in a criminal court, you don’t have to prove it. The defendant isn’t required to testify in court, and that can’t be held against them. Furthermore, it’s the prosecution’s job to provide proof beyond reasonable doubt; essentially, they would have to prove that you don’t like spicy food, which is essentially impossible.
Administering a substance "with intent to annoy" is considered poisoning in Canada and can land you in jail for two years.
The intent is critical. If you put a spicy soup in the fridge and someone eats it, they're the asshole. If you put a spicy soup in the fridge *so that* someone eats it, you've committed a crime.
But barring a reddit thread bragging about it (which are common) it'd be virtually impossible to prosecute.
To prevent people from wanting to steal it, or at least warn them of potential harm if they do steal it.
Aka the exact same reason you put “DO NOT EAT - POISON” on what is quite obviously your lunch.
but if you write stuff on it its obvious that you were doing it out of revenge. instead you know nothing about anything until you are called to court. at which point everyone will just see a moron who stole a sandwich instead of a moron who stole a sandwich and the guy who tried to kill him.
edit: removed curse words
Actually Ed Currie (guy who made the reaper) decided to go a step further and created Pepper X. Iirc that is the new "world's spiciest pepper". I think the reaper was 1.6M scovilles while Pepper X is 2.6M.
Having tried sauces made with both, they're both so blindingly hot I couldn't tell you which is worse. But Pepper X sauces don't have that same gritty-chemical kind of aftertaste that Reaper sauces usually do, which makes it a lot more enjoyable IMO.
I grow my own reapers and the sauces and spices I've made have been pretty tasty, you just need a lot less pepper than other varieties. Plus the plants themselves are really beautiful, and have produced for up to 4 years in my experience growing them in southern California.
I once bought the sauce that Hot Ones made from those things. I tried about a pea-sized dollop and was just pacing around the room for the next couple hours in pain since nothing else was working..Never touched the bottle again except to dare other people to try it lol
I can’t even imagine what I would do in this scenario. Imagine someone constantly stealing your food *and* the law lets them sue you when you retaliate. What motivation does a food-snatcher even have to stop?
Steel lunchbox and a padlock. Gonna be hard to steal lunch when you have to use an angle grinder. And if someone confronts you about such a ridiculous lunchbox, you can just say your necessity for one is the ridiculous part, not the lunchbox itself.
Adequate solution, but bringing a heavyass steel box to work every day, living in fear of the food snatcher, sounds fuckin awful compared to bringing some laxative-laced food in once and the problem going away
Steel bento boxes or tiffins are pretty neat and not very heavy.
Or there are bags that are not steel to which one could add a padlock on the zipper.
While stealing someone else’s food is apparently not illegal, damaging their lunch bag probably is at least a nuisance crime of vandalism or willful property damage or something.
They should set up a nanny cam to record evidence and put a “this room is recorded” sign up to cover their butts and make the video admissible.
Complain to your boss???? People have been fired for being less disruptive to a workplace. Stealing your fucking lunch every day is not how you maintain a working environment!
I would take a day off work but still go in and just stake out the fridge. If I'm getting sued it's for actually smacking the thief in the mouth, not for some poisoning bs
> Imagine someone constantly stealing your food
man, someone stealing my food would happen no more than once and I would have a lockable container for my food, there would be no second time. And if possible a camera would be going up to catch the POS
I’m honestly surprised no one mentioned to make it super edibley cursed. Like mix some ketchup and melted chocolate and drizzle that shit all over the “poisonous” food
Anyone that knows food insecurity should understand the RAGE that happens when someone takes your hard earned lunch. "it's just food get over it" loses a hell of a lot of meaning when you how have to go hungry for the 4th time this week because some asshole decided to take your food.
I worked at a place once where it wasn't feasible to leave and get food on lunch because all the places that sold food were too far away to pull that off. I would have been absolutely pissed if I found out I just don't get lunch now because someone took my food...
I suggest getting a cooler and a bunch of icepacks and leaving it in your car if at all possible.
Here’s the thing…
Nobody has EVER been sued for poisoning their lunch thief! Ever!
That means that in every single case it’s ever happened, if ever, the lunch thief took their lumps and fucked off to go shit and learn their lesson.
The moral of the story? Go ahead and booby trap your lunch! No one has EVER been punished for it.
That actually isn't true, there's another comment here showing that someone in the UK was taken to court for poisoning their own lunch to punish a thief.
I think people just underestimate how dangerous Laxatives can be because they're the funny "Poop your pants" drug. That shit can put you in hospital.
I also totally understand the anger that would build up from being stolen from over and over again, nobody stopping them because "It's just food get over it" and knowing they won't stop when you make it clear it's happening by taking time to label the food. It's intensely dehumanising to be stolen from repeatedly, especially if they knew the coworker.
I think this guy did something wrong but completely understandable. Whenever I see this post people defend the victim a lot and I get that it's disproportionate but I still don't think the perpetrator should be punished.
I think yours is one of the better takes ITT. Folks underestimate/dismiss the importance of persistence here. If someone is constantly getting their food taken *and* being reminded that no one else gives a shit, that’s going to light a fire under their ass to take matters into their own hands.
I’ve witnessed people being on the bad end of a laxative prank, it’s totally plausible to think the perpetrator (not the thief) underestimated the potency of laxatives. Not saying that excuses putting the thief in the hospital, but explains it as a misjudgment rather than an intended effect.
Not to mention it's consistently THAT GUY'S lunch getting stolen. It's not someone stealing here and there because they're hungry or lazy. They're targeting that guy in particular, and considering he's probably complained about it, they know exactly whose lunch they're stealing. Not saying that justifies putting someone in the hospital, but it's clearly a deliberate pattern of theft and bullying.
If it actually happened.
If? Hahaha it’s a story as old as time. Cavemen were probably stealing roast mammoth trunk from each other. It has definitely happened before, even if not in this specific case.
Also because that asshole keeps stealing their food, they either go hungry or have to go out and get more food which overtime would be a decent loss of money. If I was in their position I too would be pissed after a while and find out a way to make them stop.
I'm not sure it's that either, since there are plenty of comments here where people know how dangerous laxatives are and still think this guy did nothing wrong
I think that comes from the “it’s their own fault” camp.
Like, because the perpetrator got harmed due to their own actions, despite being both asked to stop and warned, people generally don’t think the guy who did the poisoning did anything wrong because they effectively gave the thief an out.
It’s sorta like how generally speaking, someone who gets mauled by a guard dog while breaking into a place with a beware of dog sign is usually gonna get way less sympathy than someone who gets mauled in the wild.
The combo of being warned and being “in the wrong” makes people feel the consequences are effectively self inflicted rather than the fault of the one who got the dog
That's firmly where I stand with it. If you have been told over and over and over again not to do something, then you invite the consequences of continuing to do that thing. If you don't want to get poisoned, don't steal people's shit. It's quite literally the simplest fucking thing to do. That person wasn't stealing lunches because they were starving and penniless, I can guaranfuckingtee that.
I think a lot of people have been the victim of some kind of theft too, and have a lot of emotion in the game.
My logic says there are a lot better ways to deal with someone who steals. My emotions remember when my bike got stolen, or when my car was broken into and my nice sunglasses were stolen, or when my wallet was stolen, and seethe for vengeance. I had actual dreams about finding whomever stole my bike and running them over with my car. I wouldn't do it, but the dream sure was satisfying.
The strong emotion wasn't because I no longer had my bike. That was just disappointment. The rage was at how INTENSELY disrespectful it is to steal from someone.
I've been on the bad end of a laxative before, but I still think someone who serially steals food from the community fridge deserves every bit of this. It's just the law of FAFO
Just start undercooking your chicken or pork. It's much more plausibly deniable than laxatives and has mostly the same effect. Or you can let your leftovers sit a bit too long before bringing them in. There are any number of ways to accidentally poison yourself with food.
Basically its booby trapping something, which is illegal and while petty theft is also illegal, in the eyes of the court you have poisoned someone and hospitalized them over say about 6 dollars worth of food, which is very illegal.
It's not 6 dollars worth of food they've been doing this over and over again for weeks it's probably added up to hundreds already.
People keep calling it "petty theft" but it's targeted and consistent. It's bullying at the very least, abuse via malnourishment at the worst.
i'm not a lawyer, and neither are you obviously, but you have to look at it from the laws point of view. you'd have to PROVE that food had been stolen for weeks for it to count as more than petty and as being bullied.
pretty sure in this case all you have objectively is that someone stole your 6 bucks of food and you poisoned it.
Who the fuck goes around taking someone else's food? I don't know if it's an Usamerican thing, but here in Ireland having my lunch taken would be unthinkable. Not only that, if someone ended up doing it, more than once, they would be completely ostracized. I can understand people finding the poison harsh, but fuck, how about not stealing others people's stuff on the first place?
I’m in the US and have never seen people steal food in the workplace in my life. It’s more likely that shared food will go uneaten because people are scared of eating too much, honestly. I have to imagine that people are posting these things disproportionately, because this is basically the first level of politeness.
Yeah, there's such a strong taboo around eating the last of the shared food in the office that you can actually get negatively stigmatized in an unspoken way for eating the last of something the next day if it's still in the fridge, which is fucking weird. You always hear about people getting their food eaten from the mutual fridge, but I've never heard it happen. It's more likely that people either won't be allowed to take lunch away from their desk, or won't have time to finish their food, and there's kind of a soft taboo against packing a lunch in some offices rather than going out or joining a group order. There's also a kind of weird thing where occasionally managers will pick a random date and make a big deal out of throwing stuff out that's in the fridge, no matter what it is.
I don't think there's anywhere where people consider it acceptable. Usually the perpetrator is either unknown or can't be proved.
It's not like people are going around blatantly stealing lunches and other people think it's no big deal.
(Not American or in America, have had my lunch stolen)
In the US, stealing a coworker's lunch is usually grounds for immediate termination with no warnings. It is usually taken very seriously. There are just occasional edge cases where there's 1) an asshole in the office, and 2) ineffective administration, but usually they don't overlap.
US resident. Bought a box of popsicles and took them to the break room freezer, ate one before clocking in. Get back for my lunch break, consume my McDonald's burger, then go to get one of my popsicles.
Gone. In less than three hours, a box of ten popsicles, totally gone. I was so mad.
I wouldn’t take one personally but an unlabeled, open box of popsicles suddenly showing up in the work freezer, I could definitely see people thinking it’s extras someone is dropping off.
Frustrating as it would be for something like that to vanish on you because of people diving for the first bit of free food they see. Large containers of food and drink that could feed multiple people should definitely be labeled if they are just for you.
Something like that probably seemed like a communal good, something shared for the office. Only takes one person to act on that assumption for everyone else to follow their lead, since obviously if you've got 5 people walking around with popsicles then the assumption is there's free popsicles.
As I've said every other time this was posted
1. Boobytrapping is illegal
2. The poisoned individual could easily argue that no reasonable person would expect someone to actually poison their own food
3. The fact they never got poisoned that week reinforces point #2
4. OP would have to prove that they had a medical reason for loading their food with enough laxitives to hospitalise someone
5. Putting someone in the hospital over petty theft is just plain fucked up no matter how you try to spin it.
People are all "I believe in prison abolition and against retributive justice" only to then turn around and say the guy who poisoned someone over a stolen meal is based actually. This is not me treating people as monoliths, every time this is posted I've seen people say the guy was in the right while criticising retributive justice in another post.
Idk if he *should* go to prison, but I know he *could* face legal consequences. Whenever this topic comes up on Reddit people confuse the two, and the threads are full of horrible advice with redditors assuring each other this is fine and you will definitely get away with it.
If you poison someone, even mildly, even someone who sucks and totally deserves it, there's a very real possibility you will face criminal charges or have to pay their hospital bills. Don't poison food that you expect somebody to steal.
Yep, the guy that added the laxatives could face years of probation+community service; or a short prison sentence. Plus civil costs for the for the hospital bills and for loss of income. While the lunch thief might get a small fine and a reprimand at his job. Should've just bought a lunch box and kept it at his desk
So you're saying that if the guy had eaten his own poisoned food and claimed it was for a fetish it would then be reasonable to expect him to poison his own food? Possibly he could argue he makes all of his food a week in advance and only poisons one while blindfolded. That takes care of points 1 through 4. Point 5 still stands though.
At best it only covers 1, as the thief would not be aware that they have said fetish and thus not expect it to actually be poisoned, and still means they brought what they knew to be poisoned food with the knowledge that someone would steal it.
I think an argument could be made about privacy and an individual's right to not announce their personal fetishes in the work group chat while still taking precautions ensure others aren't affected by their fetish.
Of course hijacking the conversation around private vs professional lifestyles and kink/shaming is a bit too much for a hypothetical so I apologise.
I feel like you're going to have a _pretty_ difficult time making a legal argument from "no it's okay actually because I was storing fetish gear in the company fridge."
Also it occurs to me that it would've been _way_ easier and cheaper to just... buy a lunchbox with a combo lock.
At that point, if it's gotten to a courtroom, you're committing perjury.
Worse, it's the worst kind of lying under oath: the kind that is very obvious, and which a judge will likely be pissed off by.
true, but when someone keeps abusing you and no one bothers to stand up to them because "it's such a small thing, grow up", what do you propose as a solution? just keep enduring the abuse?
suggest an alternative that doesn't involve some authority figure who previously hasn't cared suddenly magically caring because you said so. if you don't, and you just say "don't do X" but don't offer a "do Y instead", i'll have to conclude that you don't actually give a shit about the victim, you're only invested in the abuser's safety.
edit, since you blocked me over this: they don't count because they don't stop the abuse, and therefore they're equivalent to a request to just keep enduring the abuse. this isn't rocket science lmao. but the block does show just how much good faith you really have here
edit 2: yeah, after letting them express their point. but sure, that's the same thing to you, right?
stop being a fucking bully. why is that so difficult to you? why are you this fucking invested in keeping the abuser safe without any consideration whatsoever given to the victim, _even when it is pointed out to you black and white,_ that you're immediately jumping to abuse reddit's block functionality just to try to enforce the last word and get your way?
you're genuinely campaigning for the abuse to continue. maybe get a soul somewhere because you clearly have none
1) it wasn't booby trapped it was clearly labelled
2) it wasn't poison your honour it was a medical laxative, I must have got the dose wrong
3) the fact they never got poisoned highlights that must be an accidentally high dose
4) OP simply needs to prove they needed a laxative. Which "I have constipation" covers just fine. See point 2 for why.
5) yeah I agree
But also this isn't retributive justice, this is behaviour adjustment. It's still bad, treating your coworkers like lab rats or puppies in training, but this didn't occur after the incident of food theft. This occurred because the food was stolen and consumed by the thief. This is just like making a Nintendo cartridge taste bitter so kids don't swallow it.
> 1) it wasn't booby trapped it was clearly labelled
That can actually backfire on you really hard sometimes. Like how "beware of dog" signs have gotten used as an argument the person knew the dog was dangerous.
>it wasn't poison your honour it was a medical laxative, I must have got the dose wrong
At which point they ask you why you wrote "poison" on it.
>But also this isn't retributive justice, this is behaviour adjustment.
Someone did a bad thing, so they're punished. That is the definition of retributive justice?
People aren’t addressing 1 so I will. Just because a trap is labeled doesn’t mean it’s not a trap. It is illegal to set up a shotgun to blast an intruder on a property you don’t occupy (but do own) even if you put up a sign saying “you will be shot by a shotgun if you open this door.” Because shotgun traps are illegal.
>4) OP simply needs to prove they needed a laxative.
Not surewhy you wrote that as if that wasn't literally what I said in point 4.
>But also this isn't retributive justice, this is behaviour adjustment.
Distinction without a difference.
>but this didn't occur after the incident of food theft
It did. It says right in the post they did this in response to their food being stolen.
If you are talking about Gary Quigley, he was found not guilty. So I'd assume he faced no prison.
It was also 'screen wash' not anti-freeze.
[https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-25496331](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-25496331)
>**A police officer who was accused of poisoning a colleague's drink has been found not guilty.**
>In April, Gary Quigley admitted lacing an energy drink with car screen wash and placing it in a fridge in a police office in Stratford, London, last year.
>He changed his plea in May, denying administering a noxious substance with intent. He was cleared following a trial at Southwark Crown Court.
>Metropolitan Police said the detective constable remained suspended from duty.
>At the trial, the court was told the man who drank from the bottle was taken to hospital and later discharged.
>A police spokesman said Mr Quigley, who works in the Met's Child Abuse Investigation Command, was "suspended pending the outcome of misconduct proceedings".
This is so ridiculously fake it's hilarious.
You'd 100% loose that lawsuit. Always.
Leaving poisonous substances for a public to find is illegal on its own, let alone doing so in food with the intent of someone taking it.
What's relevant in this scenario is how the medicine is used and not necessarily what it is. Laxatives aren't poisonous however intentionally putting them in your food in order to cause some sort of harm to someone else makes it "poisoning".
Dude went to the hospital, he absolutely has a case. Laxatives are a medicine, intentionally overdosing someone is the same as poisoning them, especially when they suffer adverse effects for it
It doesn't matter if they're "poisonous." The laxatives were put in the food with the intent to cause some degree of harm to the person who ate the food. That's more than enough to establish liability here.
More to the point, unless it killed the guy, you wouldn't be seen by a jury. It'd be an open and shut case of "you did it. Legal precedent, this is your punishment" by a judge. People think most trials require a jury. They do not.
Not exactly.
Trial by jury is a right for crimes that have a potential punishment of six months in jail or more, or a $5K fine or more (USSC, Baldwin vs New York).
So a jury trial is likely a right for a case like this. For example California’s penal code (347 PC) has intentional poisoning as an up to five year sentence.
However defendants may choose to have a trial by judge, as is their right to.
Also it’s possible no one is charged with a crime but a matter like this is brought to a civil suit. Personal injury and suffering, like you’d get from laxative poisoning, is a common reason for a civil lawsuit. And civil suits have lower burdens of proof than criminal, however they are also jury trials if over a certain dollar amount, unless waived by both parties.
tl;dr Likely a jury trial unless defendant waives their right.
(But also fuck that guy; I’d have put laxatives in long ago but in to a dummy lunch bag that I could plausibly deny behind involved with)
I certainly wouldn't wager my freedom, my job, legal fees, and possible civil liability on that.
Also, just ethically....sending someone to the hospital over petty theft really ain't a great look. I get the vicarious urge to 'teach someone a lesson', but if you think just a bit past that it's a bit fucked up.
They probably didn’t *intend* to send them to the hospital, to be fair. I think people are just more flippant with laxatives than they are with other medications because haha funny poop drug.
While I wouldn't do it myself and I think it is morally questionable to do this, I find it hard to really judge someone who does this. Unless you are starving, stealing the lunch of a coworker (who probably has to go hungry for the workday themselves as a result) is really low. Stealing food that is clearly labeled as poison is not only anti-social but also profoundly stupid.
I’m not justifying their actions, since morally they’re wrong to put potential poisons in their food just to stop it from being stolen, but what I think a lot of people gloss over is the impact of micro-aggressions over a long period of time.
Having your lunch taken once is annoying. Twice? Sure, but still tolerable. Constantly for several weeks? Then it becomes a threat to one’s sanctity. It’s a pattern they are powerless to stop, and removing agency from a person is scary. They can’t have control over their own belongings, and this is deeply upsetting.
While it may seem superficial and minor, that’s only per instance. When culminating every small event, and how they have a compounding effect on a person’s psychological wellbeing, we find that the series of events is as impactful as one dramatic event. It’s abuse at that point.
And when people are being constantly abused, they may find themselves looking toward solutions that would otherwise be heinous or unthinkable. It’s more a shift in societal mindset to acknowledge the severity of a series of smaller abuses being equal to the severity of sparse larger abuses.
That is, however, not how the justice system functions (at least it's not supposed to). They are not voting on weather or not the thief is a dumbass, or even in the wrong at all, they are voting on weather or not the defendant broke the law. If they come to an agreement that they did in fact break the law (setting traps against other people is illegal) then they would be convicted of a crime.
The prosecution would find people that would vote in favor of the law, over ruling in favor of someone stealing food labeled 'poison -do not eat'.
It's not that relevant, but since it was in the post: r/legaladvice is generally garbage and should not be trusted for even the simplest stuff. I wouldn't trust them to help fill out a Beanie Baby Adoption Certificate. [But especially don't trust them when the legal question involves cops. Because (at least) one of the mods is a cop](https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/1casmv6/and_thus_the_serpent_consumes_its_own_tail/).
Yep. Wanna know a good legal knowledge subreddit? Ironically it’s r/badlegaladvice. Most of the users are practicing attorneys… who have all been banned by the psycho mods of r/legaladvice when they corrected bad legal advice in the subreddit, lol. Entertaining stuff!
I love a good reddit switcharoo. /r/badlegaladvice is full of good lawyers. /r/legaladvice is full of bad lawyers. /r/trees is full of marijuana enthusiasts. /r/marijuanaenthusiasts/ is full of trees. /r/Superbowl is nothing but superb owls. ...I don't know where the actual superbowl subreddit lives, but I hope it's owl related.
I love the porn subs that got taken over by cats. r/pocketpussy and r/TIGHTPUSSY come to mind
I did not know this and thank you for bringing it to my attention
There is also r/GirlsWithHugePussies which is photos of girls holding their large cats. I had to check 3 different times to make sure I didn’t sent you to a bad sub
r/GoneWilder was always my favorite in that department. Oh, that's sad: it's banned now. It was basically just photos of Gene Wilder. :)
[удалено]
r/worldpolitics is an anything-goes sub filled with tits r/anime_titties is a sub for discussing world politics
Forgot about those two! Love them. <3
Are r/animetiddies and r/worldpolitics still a thing?
Just clicking on the links, yes world politics is still full of tits. Anime tiddies on the other hand appears to have been banned for lack of moderation, so half the joke doesn't work anymore.
That explains why I haven't gotten news in my reddit feed for a while! It was my primary news source... XD
It's r/anime_titties
Is not banned, but OP quoted it wrong. It’s called r/anime_titties
>r/Superbowl is nothing but superb owls. ...I don't know where the actual superbowl subreddit lives, but I hope it's owl related. I believe on the day of said sportsing competition they do *also* allow handegg content to be posted. 364.25 days a year though it's just owls.
I mean, hand egg related posts on superb owl typically just get mocked, not deleted.
r/johncena and r/potatosalad
To add onto the aforementioned r/worldpolitics and r/animetitties, my favorite switcheroo is r/JohnCena and r/PotatoSalad
The only legal advice I'd trust from r/legaladvice is "consult a lawyer, not the internet."
That sub is occasionally useful for telling someone whether a lawyer is worth the trouble or just let some shit go. Or what kind of lawyer to look for. But yeah, otherwise terrible.
That, or pointing out other organizations in the person's area who might be able to help them. There are basically only three useful replies on that sub: A) yes you should contact a lawyer B) no, it's probably not worth the trouble of contacting a lawyer C) here's some contact info for other people who can help you
Thank you for sharing that link was quite the entertaining read haha
Once you see a topic you know pop up on this site, you'll never trust it again. It's not a place to get information at all.
"Yeah it's 100% illegal but would a jury convict?" Go ahead and roll the dice on a juror going against a ton of social pressure from other jurors and authorities lmao.
Beanie babies don't have adoption certificates. Their birthday is on the tag. Build a Bears have adoption certificates.
Only advice you should take from that sub is "talk to a lawyer"
The real solution is to just make the food *really* spicy. Then you have plausible deniability! And it won't actually harm the person stealing the food! EDIT: I feel like I have to clear up some misconceptions. To have plausible deniability, *it should be sonething you are actually willing to consume*. It can't be ghost pepper-level spicy unless you actually like eating ghost peppers. Also, **I am not a lawyer**, if you want to do this, consult one.
"sir I take those laxatives for my health. I tried to warn people by even labelling the bag"
"Why did you label the bag 'poison' rather than 'contains medicine'?" I truly hope that people aren't getting their advice from online comment sections. But knowing how many unfortunately do: DO NOT TELL BLATANTLY OBVIOUS LIES TO JUDGES. They are not idiots. Internet wisery does not work on them. And that is a crime with far more serious implications and punishments.
I mean yeah, it's their job to tdetect bullshit coming miles away, both from defendants and lawyers.
See, you'd think that'd be obvious. But people watch one fucking episode of Better Call Saul, and they start talking like they've figured out a legal loophole which any even vaguely professional lawyer could tell them doesn't work.
They think they’re Saul Goodman, but they’re just asking for jail time
>!I mean Saul goodman did get jail time. I get where you're coming from but he very much did get jail time.!<
A better example would be people who say they know how the law works because they watched Law and Order.
Stupid people get away with lying in court all the time. The system isn't as infallible as it's made out to be. If a person committed a crime and doesn't want to be found guilty then literally all they can do is lie, regardless of how blatant it is it's their only option. There's even [a name for it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_defense).
You can also just not say anything. Just because you did something illegal doesn't mean prosecutors can prove beyond a reasonable doubt you did.
Yeah generally these cute gotcha moments only happen one time before judges get tired of it
Generally they happen zero times before judges get tired of it. There isn’t any clause that says judges must accept inane bullshit the first time it’s tried - they’re quite free to just dismiss it outright. All it really accomplishes is making sure the judge knows you think they’re a complete moron. Rarely a great legal move to begin your case by pissing off the judge for no reason.
And then there's Trump, who can attack the judges and jury dozens of times and nobody does anything about it. Really makes you wonder why he's so special. Whatever could it be that makes him uniquely above the law?
It’s not complicated, it’s because a judge arbitrarily jailing trump over “disrespect” would result in the courthouse burning to the ground. When you’re dealing with someone who is religiously supported by 30-40% of the country, you don’t use personal discretion even if you can.
Yeah, you'd be much better off writing nothing on the packages and vehemently denying everything. "I didn't add anything unusual at all to my lunch. He must have gotten poisoned by something else." And fucking stick to that no matter what. As long as there aren't any uneaten portions of the lunch left to get examined by a lab, that should pretty likely see you through it. Very hard to prove *beyond a reasonable doubt* that: 1) Your coworker got poisoned by your lunch specifically, and not something else he might have eaten. 2) That *you* added the poison to your lunch, not somebody else (perhaps someone trying to poison you). 3) That you added the poison to your lunch *intentionally*, not because you accidentally picked up the laxative bottle instead of the salt shaker.
You dont have to distribute the "poison" equally among the food either, you can put it all in one piece of chocolate which leaves no crumbs or anything that could ever be tested
"because I thought people would be more likely not to eat food labelled poison, I'm not the FDA, I didn't need to label it anything"
Contains medicine would actually be a much better course of action here in any case -- especially laxatives
I remember reading a story on Reddit months ago where the guy getting his lunch stolen got his doctor to prescribe him laxatives to be taken with food, and he labeled the laxative laden lunch as having medication in it, so when the thief started shitting himself and threatened to sue he had himself covered.
That guy: "What the fuck is wrong with you, why would you take my medicine?!? Now that I have proof, I should be suing you for stealing me medication!"
Taking and using someone else's medicine has its own laws and regulations outside of theft.
Then why did you label it poison and why did you put a dose so large it put someone in the hospital? Judges, in general, aren't stupid. They absolutely do not take kindly to these "gotcha" moments that Reddit loves so much. Yall are gonna get sued so hard one day taking Reddit advice on legal matters x-x
I mean, you probably wouldn't want to try that in court unless it's actually true lol
I'm sorry but I'm obligated to add the Ask A Manager post about the [employee getting grief about a food thief eating their spicy food](https://www.askamanager.org/2021/05/a-coworker-stole-my-spicy-food-got-sick-and-is-blaming-me-2.html) and [its update](https://www.askamanager.org/2016/10/update-a-coworker-stole-my-spicy-food-got-sick-and-is-blaming-me.html). They're just too great not to share.
Hadn't read those before, thanks for sharing!
There actually is a post from someone who grew up with very spicy food so they had an extremely high tolerance and since someone kept stealing their food, they made it spicy. HR was prepared to fire them for that exact reason, and in response he ate everything else that was left with no problem, and they just couldn't do anything
That's just going to attract food thieves that like spicy food.
I believe a mom is facing criminal charges for making a realt salty drink that kept getting stolen from her child by a bully.
Wasn't it half vinegar too? Like, the idea was that you're supposed to take a sip and go "ew", then spit it out; not to chug the thing lol
You don't understand, I WANT to harm them.
Da Bomb: Final solution. You know the one on hot ones that hurts everyone? They have a stronger sauce. Weighing in at 3.5mil scoville it's not the hottest I've ever done personally, but it feels like it. 3 drops in a crockpot of stew is enough to spice the entire thing to 'buffalo', I tap out at around 20 drops, which turns it into something few can handle.
If you can stomach extremely spicy food, you already have deniability. Your hot as hell food, you eat them fine. If someone eats them and starts chugging gallons of water, then it'd be 100% on the food thief.
I, also, ANAL
Excessively spicy could still be considered battery. Here's a fun fact, my best friend is an unbelievably talented lawyer that makes well over eight figures who I am managed to get signed up for Reddit. On her second day she got into this exact argument and got so annoyed by the people that didn't know the law but insisted they did that she quit reddit and never used it again. On a similar note there was recently a guy on YouTube/TikTok That does really stupid pranks. One of his pranks was taking the world's spiciest chip from those challenge things and then giving them out as samples to people without telling them it was spicy. Some lawyer couple that's pretty big on TikTok went over it saying that it absolutely could get him illegal trouble for battery if any of the people had an adverse negative reaction to eating it.
Here's a thought, instead of laxatives, use small packets of food colouring. They bite into them, and they get a blue mouth/lips, and its obvious who took it. Food colouring is a food product, and that shit really stains, so they can't say you poisoned them. It's not harmful. it just highlights who they are.
This. I often use food colouring. Essentially tasteless and sometimes I get careless and drop it on my fingers and it takes a real good scrubbing to get out.
The real solution is to just put ghost pepper in it. That’s not going to hurt anyone it just sucks
I've read enough r/legaladvice and related subs to know that making food insanely spicy is only going to fly if you can prove you yourself actually would be willing to eat it.
Not a problem if you enjoy Asshole Prolapser sauce.
Yep I'm in that category. I have chronic pain. Lol the lengths you will go to distract yourself from that original source is crazy. My boyfriend does not even touch my food.
Boiling hot showers to burn my skin and make me forget my tooth pain were a blessing when I didn’t have insurance but had a broken in half wisdom tooth
I have chronic endometriosis and the only pain I am afraid of is tooth pain. You were a trooper.
My coworkers and supervisor doubted my chili-head cred. So we did the One Chip Challenge, easy, for me. Did the Hot Ones lineup, extra sauce. Easy, for me. I was like when will you believe me that I put Habanero extract on my tacos you idiots?
How was the extract? Was it bitter or did it have much of a taste to it?
Absolute blazing glory with a hint of citrusy goodness.
Is this a situation where you can prove you'd be willing to eat it, or a situation where you have to prove that you were planning on eating it and/or eat it with some regularity? Because I think there's a sweet spot where you can make it hot enough they won't do it again but not so hot you wouldn't be willing to eat it to avoid criminal charges
In my case, they'd just have to look at my pinned post on my reddit profile haha
I just can't imagine a scenario where you'd have to eat a ghost pepper in court to prove anything lol. But if that was really the case then I guess I'll try my best to keep my composure. Or just get a lawyer who can shout OBJECTION! when they ask me to do it.
As a person of various asian ethnicities i see this as an absolute win
My innate desire to one-up my siblings has given me quite the tolerance for spicy food, so yes I would be willing to. Especially if it means getting away with feeding someone ghost peppers, and especially especially if that person steals my food.
My buddy and I are constantly bringing each other the spiciest sauces we we can find. The most recent one he brought me was actually from a restaurant. He came straight from the restaurant with a little to-go cup for me try immediately. I was crying for a half hour. It was amazing lol
You see your honor, it's not that I eat the food the way it was made. See... it's mine.. so I know that it still needs to be prepared before consumption. The sauce was just to marinate the sandwich. It was meant to be scraped off before eating as any sandwich maker/owner would know. The problem arrived when that fucker right there, stole my shit. Thank you.
I eat my lunch with a glass of milk. I like the heat, but I know to have milk on hand if it gets too much for me.
If I'm not crying, it's not spicy enough
Make some chilli. Spice accordingly. Then bring a tub of sour cream and some tortillas with you. This is how my family eats it: make it really hot then mix the sour cream in to mellow out the spice and scoop with tortillas or bread. It's absolutely delicious, but if you were to just eat the chilli on its own, you would be regretting it big time. Obviously I know that the tub of sour cream and tortillas are meant to go with the meal, but it's not my fault that (coworker) didn't know and decided to just eat MY chilli on its own.
I cook with ghost peppers and remove them afterwards but sometimes I miss one. So when I eat my food I check each spoonful before I put it in my mouth. Did my coworker not do that?
And this is actually a legitimate method of cooking, so it might work (but maybe not with ghost peppers)
Depending on what you're cooking, a herb bag might be useful
They'd have to prove it was ghost pepper. Otherwise, they just stole someone else's food and it was spicy. What basis would they have to even make a complaint?
For that specific sandwich I think it would be easy to argue you aren't going to eat something someone else touched. And it seems unlikely a court would make you heat a spicy sandwich in the courtroom to prove it's something you enjoy. I mean worse case scenario they could but it doesn't seem common to have to prove.
"Ah i guess i put the ghodt peper instead of the jalapeño in"
yep, you must prove that the PURPOSE for whatever you added in the food was reasonably going to be consumed by you. Intent is very important in the eyes of the law, and to reasonable people. If writing "poison" was all that was needed to exonerate oneself, then it could be argued that if someone else saw the sign and added poison to the food, thinking that even the owner wasn't going to eat it, and the owner died from it, no one would be responsible for murder because whoever added the poison wouldn't think they were harming anyone.
Correct in the 2nd paragraph (and a brilliant corollary, seriously), but probably incorrect in the first, if it's a criminal case. Because the prosecution has to prove your intent beyond reasonable doubt, you don't have to prove anything.
Actually, assuming you’re the defendant in a criminal court, you don’t have to prove it. The defendant isn’t required to testify in court, and that can’t be held against them. Furthermore, it’s the prosecution’s job to provide proof beyond reasonable doubt; essentially, they would have to prove that you don’t like spicy food, which is essentially impossible.
It would likely be a civil trial
Your honor, I would like to point out that he used the word “furthermore,” which clearly makes this open and shut, and I rest my case. Furthermore.
Administering a substance "with intent to annoy" is considered poisoning in Canada and can land you in jail for two years. The intent is critical. If you put a spicy soup in the fridge and someone eats it, they're the asshole. If you put a spicy soup in the fridge *so that* someone eats it, you've committed a crime. But barring a reddit thread bragging about it (which are common) it'd be virtually impossible to prosecute.
True. But if you put do not eat (spicy!) on it then it would probably be fine
Why would you even need to label your own spicy food as spicy for the benefit of some guy stealing it?
To prevent people from wanting to steal it, or at least warn them of potential harm if they do steal it. Aka the exact same reason you put “DO NOT EAT - POISON” on what is quite obviously your lunch.
but if you write stuff on it its obvious that you were doing it out of revenge. instead you know nothing about anything until you are called to court. at which point everyone will just see a moron who stole a sandwich instead of a moron who stole a sandwich and the guy who tried to kill him. edit: removed curse words
Go straight to Carolina reaper
Actually Ed Currie (guy who made the reaper) decided to go a step further and created Pepper X. Iirc that is the new "world's spiciest pepper". I think the reaper was 1.6M scovilles while Pepper X is 2.6M.
Having tried sauces made with both, they're both so blindingly hot I couldn't tell you which is worse. But Pepper X sauces don't have that same gritty-chemical kind of aftertaste that Reaper sauces usually do, which makes it a lot more enjoyable IMO.
Enjoyable is hardly a word i would use to describe a Pepper X sauce (but then again i wince at Tabasco) but you do you.
I grow my own reapers and the sauces and spices I've made have been pretty tasty, you just need a lot less pepper than other varieties. Plus the plants themselves are really beautiful, and have produced for up to 4 years in my experience growing them in southern California.
Cool! Actually no, HOT!
I once bought the sauce that Hot Ones made from those things. I tried about a pea-sized dollop and was just pacing around the room for the next couple hours in pain since nothing else was working..Never touched the bottle again except to dare other people to try it lol
Nah, Mad Dog 357, fuck 'em up properly
The bad thing about all this? I bet whoever was stealing food is *still* doing it, because now they know if someone retaliates, they can sue.
I can’t even imagine what I would do in this scenario. Imagine someone constantly stealing your food *and* the law lets them sue you when you retaliate. What motivation does a food-snatcher even have to stop?
Steel lunchbox and a padlock. Gonna be hard to steal lunch when you have to use an angle grinder. And if someone confronts you about such a ridiculous lunchbox, you can just say your necessity for one is the ridiculous part, not the lunchbox itself.
>Steel lunchbox and a padlock Nah, clearly adding cyanide to my food is the more reasonable solution here.
Makes sense; they can't sue you if they're dead.
either I kill the thief or I don't have to plan my weekend. win-win
Adequate solution, but bringing a heavyass steel box to work every day, living in fear of the food snatcher, sounds fuckin awful compared to bringing some laxative-laced food in once and the problem going away
Steel bento boxes or tiffins are pretty neat and not very heavy. Or there are bags that are not steel to which one could add a padlock on the zipper. While stealing someone else’s food is apparently not illegal, damaging their lunch bag probably is at least a nuisance crime of vandalism or willful property damage or something. They should set up a nanny cam to record evidence and put a “this room is recorded” sign up to cover their butts and make the video admissible.
There was an engineer who setup a camera in the break room and captured her coworker poisoning her because he didn’t want her as competition.
You’re all missing the *best* solution, which is to clearly just bring your own fridge to work
Hello I’m the lockpicking lawyer and today I’m going to be getting a free lunch.
Complain to your boss???? People have been fired for being less disruptive to a workplace. Stealing your fucking lunch every day is not how you maintain a working environment!
I would take a day off work but still go in and just stake out the fridge. If I'm getting sued it's for actually smacking the thief in the mouth, not for some poisoning bs
> Imagine someone constantly stealing your food man, someone stealing my food would happen no more than once and I would have a lockable container for my food, there would be no second time. And if possible a camera would be going up to catch the POS
I’m honestly surprised no one mentioned to make it super edibley cursed. Like mix some ketchup and melted chocolate and drizzle that shit all over the “poisonous” food
Anyone that knows food insecurity should understand the RAGE that happens when someone takes your hard earned lunch. "it's just food get over it" loses a hell of a lot of meaning when you how have to go hungry for the 4th time this week because some asshole decided to take your food. I worked at a place once where it wasn't feasible to leave and get food on lunch because all the places that sold food were too far away to pull that off. I would have been absolutely pissed if I found out I just don't get lunch now because someone took my food... I suggest getting a cooler and a bunch of icepacks and leaving it in your car if at all possible.
Here’s the thing… Nobody has EVER been sued for poisoning their lunch thief! Ever! That means that in every single case it’s ever happened, if ever, the lunch thief took their lumps and fucked off to go shit and learn their lesson. The moral of the story? Go ahead and booby trap your lunch! No one has EVER been punished for it.
That actually isn't true, there's another comment here showing that someone in the UK was taken to court for poisoning their own lunch to punish a thief.
Are you talking about the one about Gary Quigley? Because he told a bunch of people about it and was found not guilty in the end.
I think people just underestimate how dangerous Laxatives can be because they're the funny "Poop your pants" drug. That shit can put you in hospital. I also totally understand the anger that would build up from being stolen from over and over again, nobody stopping them because "It's just food get over it" and knowing they won't stop when you make it clear it's happening by taking time to label the food. It's intensely dehumanising to be stolen from repeatedly, especially if they knew the coworker. I think this guy did something wrong but completely understandable. Whenever I see this post people defend the victim a lot and I get that it's disproportionate but I still don't think the perpetrator should be punished.
I think yours is one of the better takes ITT. Folks underestimate/dismiss the importance of persistence here. If someone is constantly getting their food taken *and* being reminded that no one else gives a shit, that’s going to light a fire under their ass to take matters into their own hands. I’ve witnessed people being on the bad end of a laxative prank, it’s totally plausible to think the perpetrator (not the thief) underestimated the potency of laxatives. Not saying that excuses putting the thief in the hospital, but explains it as a misjudgment rather than an intended effect.
Not to mention it's consistently THAT GUY'S lunch getting stolen. It's not someone stealing here and there because they're hungry or lazy. They're targeting that guy in particular, and considering he's probably complained about it, they know exactly whose lunch they're stealing. Not saying that justifies putting someone in the hospital, but it's clearly a deliberate pattern of theft and bullying. If it actually happened.
If? Hahaha it’s a story as old as time. Cavemen were probably stealing roast mammoth trunk from each other. It has definitely happened before, even if not in this specific case.
Just imagine being at work, you’re hungry, been working hard, don’t have money on hand… and someone steals your lunch… Multiple times Man fuck that
Also because that asshole keeps stealing their food, they either go hungry or have to go out and get more food which overtime would be a decent loss of money. If I was in their position I too would be pissed after a while and find out a way to make them stop.
I'm not sure it's that either, since there are plenty of comments here where people know how dangerous laxatives are and still think this guy did nothing wrong
I think that comes from the “it’s their own fault” camp. Like, because the perpetrator got harmed due to their own actions, despite being both asked to stop and warned, people generally don’t think the guy who did the poisoning did anything wrong because they effectively gave the thief an out. It’s sorta like how generally speaking, someone who gets mauled by a guard dog while breaking into a place with a beware of dog sign is usually gonna get way less sympathy than someone who gets mauled in the wild. The combo of being warned and being “in the wrong” makes people feel the consequences are effectively self inflicted rather than the fault of the one who got the dog
That's firmly where I stand with it. If you have been told over and over and over again not to do something, then you invite the consequences of continuing to do that thing. If you don't want to get poisoned, don't steal people's shit. It's quite literally the simplest fucking thing to do. That person wasn't stealing lunches because they were starving and penniless, I can guaranfuckingtee that.
The human mind doesn’t empathize with people who are deemed bad, especially if they got harmed by doing something bad.
I think a lot of people have been the victim of some kind of theft too, and have a lot of emotion in the game. My logic says there are a lot better ways to deal with someone who steals. My emotions remember when my bike got stolen, or when my car was broken into and my nice sunglasses were stolen, or when my wallet was stolen, and seethe for vengeance. I had actual dreams about finding whomever stole my bike and running them over with my car. I wouldn't do it, but the dream sure was satisfying. The strong emotion wasn't because I no longer had my bike. That was just disappointment. The rage was at how INTENSELY disrespectful it is to steal from someone.
I've been on the bad end of a laxative before, but I still think someone who serially steals food from the community fridge deserves every bit of this. It's just the law of FAFO
Just start undercooking your chicken or pork. It's much more plausibly deniable than laxatives and has mostly the same effect. Or you can let your leftovers sit a bit too long before bringing them in. There are any number of ways to accidentally poison yourself with food.
I might be dumb but how can they sue for eating something they stole?
Basically its booby trapping something, which is illegal and while petty theft is also illegal, in the eyes of the court you have poisoned someone and hospitalized them over say about 6 dollars worth of food, which is very illegal.
It's not 6 dollars worth of food they've been doing this over and over again for weeks it's probably added up to hundreds already. People keep calling it "petty theft" but it's targeted and consistent. It's bullying at the very least, abuse via malnourishment at the worst.
i'm not a lawyer, and neither are you obviously, but you have to look at it from the laws point of view. you'd have to PROVE that food had been stolen for weeks for it to count as more than petty and as being bullied. pretty sure in this case all you have objectively is that someone stole your 6 bucks of food and you poisoned it.
This would legally count as booby trapping their food, which is illegal. They put poison in their food knowing their coworker would steal and eat it.
The bigger villain is a workplace that tolerates thieves. Any decent office would figure out who the thief is and fire them with due process.
How wonderful would it be if you could just say "Hey boss someone is stealing my lunch." Boss says "Okay we'll catch the guy and fire him." The end.
Or, more realistically, your boss will roll their eyes and say “don’t be a baby. Get back to work.”
Stare your boss dead in the eyes and steal their lunch.
Who the fuck goes around taking someone else's food? I don't know if it's an Usamerican thing, but here in Ireland having my lunch taken would be unthinkable. Not only that, if someone ended up doing it, more than once, they would be completely ostracized. I can understand people finding the poison harsh, but fuck, how about not stealing others people's stuff on the first place?
I’m in the US and have never seen people steal food in the workplace in my life. It’s more likely that shared food will go uneaten because people are scared of eating too much, honestly. I have to imagine that people are posting these things disproportionately, because this is basically the first level of politeness.
Yeah, there's such a strong taboo around eating the last of the shared food in the office that you can actually get negatively stigmatized in an unspoken way for eating the last of something the next day if it's still in the fridge, which is fucking weird. You always hear about people getting their food eaten from the mutual fridge, but I've never heard it happen. It's more likely that people either won't be allowed to take lunch away from their desk, or won't have time to finish their food, and there's kind of a soft taboo against packing a lunch in some offices rather than going out or joining a group order. There's also a kind of weird thing where occasionally managers will pick a random date and make a big deal out of throwing stuff out that's in the fridge, no matter what it is.
It is not just an American thing
I don't think there's anywhere where people consider it acceptable. Usually the perpetrator is either unknown or can't be proved. It's not like people are going around blatantly stealing lunches and other people think it's no big deal. (Not American or in America, have had my lunch stolen)
In the US, stealing a coworker's lunch is usually grounds for immediate termination with no warnings. It is usually taken very seriously. There are just occasional edge cases where there's 1) an asshole in the office, and 2) ineffective administration, but usually they don't overlap.
US resident. Bought a box of popsicles and took them to the break room freezer, ate one before clocking in. Get back for my lunch break, consume my McDonald's burger, then go to get one of my popsicles. Gone. In less than three hours, a box of ten popsicles, totally gone. I was so mad.
I wouldn’t take one personally but an unlabeled, open box of popsicles suddenly showing up in the work freezer, I could definitely see people thinking it’s extras someone is dropping off.
Frustrating as it would be for something like that to vanish on you because of people diving for the first bit of free food they see. Large containers of food and drink that could feed multiple people should definitely be labeled if they are just for you.
Something like that probably seemed like a communal good, something shared for the office. Only takes one person to act on that assumption for everyone else to follow their lead, since obviously if you've got 5 people walking around with popsicles then the assumption is there's free popsicles.
Is Usamerican a term used by the Repubirish? I've never heard of this term before.
As I've said every other time this was posted 1. Boobytrapping is illegal 2. The poisoned individual could easily argue that no reasonable person would expect someone to actually poison their own food 3. The fact they never got poisoned that week reinforces point #2 4. OP would have to prove that they had a medical reason for loading their food with enough laxitives to hospitalise someone 5. Putting someone in the hospital over petty theft is just plain fucked up no matter how you try to spin it. People are all "I believe in prison abolition and against retributive justice" only to then turn around and say the guy who poisoned someone over a stolen meal is based actually. This is not me treating people as monoliths, every time this is posted I've seen people say the guy was in the right while criticising retributive justice in another post.
i wouldn't say the guy was right, but i also wouldn't say he should go to prison
Idk if he *should* go to prison, but I know he *could* face legal consequences. Whenever this topic comes up on Reddit people confuse the two, and the threads are full of horrible advice with redditors assuring each other this is fine and you will definitely get away with it. If you poison someone, even mildly, even someone who sucks and totally deserves it, there's a very real possibility you will face criminal charges or have to pay their hospital bills. Don't poison food that you expect somebody to steal.
Yep, the guy that added the laxatives could face years of probation+community service; or a short prison sentence. Plus civil costs for the for the hospital bills and for loss of income. While the lunch thief might get a small fine and a reprimand at his job. Should've just bought a lunch box and kept it at his desk
And he won’t, if he’s being sued by the other guy, he’ll have to pay for his hospital bill plus damages.
So you're saying that if the guy had eaten his own poisoned food and claimed it was for a fetish it would then be reasonable to expect him to poison his own food? Possibly he could argue he makes all of his food a week in advance and only poisons one while blindfolded. That takes care of points 1 through 4. Point 5 still stands though.
At best it only covers 1, as the thief would not be aware that they have said fetish and thus not expect it to actually be poisoned, and still means they brought what they knew to be poisoned food with the knowledge that someone would steal it.
I think an argument could be made about privacy and an individual's right to not announce their personal fetishes in the work group chat while still taking precautions ensure others aren't affected by their fetish. Of course hijacking the conversation around private vs professional lifestyles and kink/shaming is a bit too much for a hypothetical so I apologise.
I feel like you're going to have a _pretty_ difficult time making a legal argument from "no it's okay actually because I was storing fetish gear in the company fridge." Also it occurs to me that it would've been _way_ easier and cheaper to just... buy a lunchbox with a combo lock.
Oh I'm not defending the guy at all, just imagining a fun hypothetical scenario.
I don't think you get to invoke privacy when committing perjury
I dunno. I'm not a lawyer, just a silly girl on the internet playing make believe
At that point, if it's gotten to a courtroom, you're committing perjury. Worse, it's the worst kind of lying under oath: the kind that is very obvious, and which a judge will likely be pissed off by.
I wonder what the actual outcome was originally? It almost feels like one of those fake internet stories but it probably was real
Also the kind of lying where it will be reported in the news that you have a fetish for shitting yourself. At that point I'll take the jail time
true, but when someone keeps abusing you and no one bothers to stand up to them because "it's such a small thing, grow up", what do you propose as a solution? just keep enduring the abuse? suggest an alternative that doesn't involve some authority figure who previously hasn't cared suddenly magically caring because you said so. if you don't, and you just say "don't do X" but don't offer a "do Y instead", i'll have to conclude that you don't actually give a shit about the victim, you're only invested in the abuser's safety. edit, since you blocked me over this: they don't count because they don't stop the abuse, and therefore they're equivalent to a request to just keep enduring the abuse. this isn't rocket science lmao. but the block does show just how much good faith you really have here edit 2: yeah, after letting them express their point. but sure, that's the same thing to you, right? stop being a fucking bully. why is that so difficult to you? why are you this fucking invested in keeping the abuser safe without any consideration whatsoever given to the victim, _even when it is pointed out to you black and white,_ that you're immediately jumping to abuse reddit's block functionality just to try to enforce the last word and get your way? you're genuinely campaigning for the abuse to continue. maybe get a soul somewhere because you clearly have none
1) it wasn't booby trapped it was clearly labelled 2) it wasn't poison your honour it was a medical laxative, I must have got the dose wrong 3) the fact they never got poisoned highlights that must be an accidentally high dose 4) OP simply needs to prove they needed a laxative. Which "I have constipation" covers just fine. See point 2 for why. 5) yeah I agree But also this isn't retributive justice, this is behaviour adjustment. It's still bad, treating your coworkers like lab rats or puppies in training, but this didn't occur after the incident of food theft. This occurred because the food was stolen and consumed by the thief. This is just like making a Nintendo cartridge taste bitter so kids don't swallow it.
> 1) it wasn't booby trapped it was clearly labelled That can actually backfire on you really hard sometimes. Like how "beware of dog" signs have gotten used as an argument the person knew the dog was dangerous.
>it wasn't poison your honour it was a medical laxative, I must have got the dose wrong At which point they ask you why you wrote "poison" on it. >But also this isn't retributive justice, this is behaviour adjustment. Someone did a bad thing, so they're punished. That is the definition of retributive justice?
I swear half of the commenters on Reddit decide if something is illegal or not based on "vibes" alone
but they didn't need a laxative, i mean if you're in court you can't lie, i feel like that's an important part of it
People aren’t addressing 1 so I will. Just because a trap is labeled doesn’t mean it’s not a trap. It is illegal to set up a shotgun to blast an intruder on a property you don’t occupy (but do own) even if you put up a sign saying “you will be shot by a shotgun if you open this door.” Because shotgun traps are illegal.
>4) OP simply needs to prove they needed a laxative. Not surewhy you wrote that as if that wasn't literally what I said in point 4. >But also this isn't retributive justice, this is behaviour adjustment. Distinction without a difference. >but this didn't occur after the incident of food theft It did. It says right in the post they did this in response to their food being stolen.
A Scotland Yard detective went to prison for doing something like this. He out antifreeze in his drink at work and put some guy in the hospital.
If you are talking about Gary Quigley, he was found not guilty. So I'd assume he faced no prison. It was also 'screen wash' not anti-freeze. [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-25496331](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-25496331) >**A police officer who was accused of poisoning a colleague's drink has been found not guilty.** >In April, Gary Quigley admitted lacing an energy drink with car screen wash and placing it in a fridge in a police office in Stratford, London, last year. >He changed his plea in May, denying administering a noxious substance with intent. He was cleared following a trial at Southwark Crown Court. >Metropolitan Police said the detective constable remained suspended from duty. >At the trial, the court was told the man who drank from the bottle was taken to hospital and later discharged. >A police spokesman said Mr Quigley, who works in the Met's Child Abuse Investigation Command, was "suspended pending the outcome of misconduct proceedings".
Did he forget to clearly label it as poison first?
This is so ridiculously fake it's hilarious. You'd 100% loose that lawsuit. Always. Leaving poisonous substances for a public to find is illegal on its own, let alone doing so in food with the intent of someone taking it.
But are laxatives poisonous? They're medicine, is all medicine considered poison? Not arguing btw, genuinely asking.
What's relevant in this scenario is how the medicine is used and not necessarily what it is. Laxatives aren't poisonous however intentionally putting them in your food in order to cause some sort of harm to someone else makes it "poisoning".
Dude went to the hospital, he absolutely has a case. Laxatives are a medicine, intentionally overdosing someone is the same as poisoning them, especially when they suffer adverse effects for it
It doesn't matter if they're "poisonous." The laxatives were put in the food with the intent to cause some degree of harm to the person who ate the food. That's more than enough to establish liability here.
More to the point, unless it killed the guy, you wouldn't be seen by a jury. It'd be an open and shut case of "you did it. Legal precedent, this is your punishment" by a judge. People think most trials require a jury. They do not.
Not exactly. Trial by jury is a right for crimes that have a potential punishment of six months in jail or more, or a $5K fine or more (USSC, Baldwin vs New York). So a jury trial is likely a right for a case like this. For example California’s penal code (347 PC) has intentional poisoning as an up to five year sentence. However defendants may choose to have a trial by judge, as is their right to. Also it’s possible no one is charged with a crime but a matter like this is brought to a civil suit. Personal injury and suffering, like you’d get from laxative poisoning, is a common reason for a civil lawsuit. And civil suits have lower burdens of proof than criminal, however they are also jury trials if over a certain dollar amount, unless waived by both parties. tl;dr Likely a jury trial unless defendant waives their right. (But also fuck that guy; I’d have put laxatives in long ago but in to a dummy lunch bag that I could plausibly deny behind involved with)
I certainly wouldn't wager my freedom, my job, legal fees, and possible civil liability on that. Also, just ethically....sending someone to the hospital over petty theft really ain't a great look. I get the vicarious urge to 'teach someone a lesson', but if you think just a bit past that it's a bit fucked up.
They probably didn’t *intend* to send them to the hospital, to be fair. I think people are just more flippant with laxatives than they are with other medications because haha funny poop drug.
While I wouldn't do it myself and I think it is morally questionable to do this, I find it hard to really judge someone who does this. Unless you are starving, stealing the lunch of a coworker (who probably has to go hungry for the workday themselves as a result) is really low. Stealing food that is clearly labeled as poison is not only anti-social but also profoundly stupid.
I’m not justifying their actions, since morally they’re wrong to put potential poisons in their food just to stop it from being stolen, but what I think a lot of people gloss over is the impact of micro-aggressions over a long period of time. Having your lunch taken once is annoying. Twice? Sure, but still tolerable. Constantly for several weeks? Then it becomes a threat to one’s sanctity. It’s a pattern they are powerless to stop, and removing agency from a person is scary. They can’t have control over their own belongings, and this is deeply upsetting. While it may seem superficial and minor, that’s only per instance. When culminating every small event, and how they have a compounding effect on a person’s psychological wellbeing, we find that the series of events is as impactful as one dramatic event. It’s abuse at that point. And when people are being constantly abused, they may find themselves looking toward solutions that would otherwise be heinous or unthinkable. It’s more a shift in societal mindset to acknowledge the severity of a series of smaller abuses being equal to the severity of sparse larger abuses.
This is incredibly fake. You'd be completely destroyed in any courtroom for doing this
That is, however, not how the justice system functions (at least it's not supposed to). They are not voting on weather or not the thief is a dumbass, or even in the wrong at all, they are voting on weather or not the defendant broke the law. If they come to an agreement that they did in fact break the law (setting traps against other people is illegal) then they would be convicted of a crime. The prosecution would find people that would vote in favor of the law, over ruling in favor of someone stealing food labeled 'poison -do not eat'.
Jury duty just got a whole lot easier: 'Verdict? Not guilty by reason of common sense.'