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the cash was put into the trouser pocket and lost, but the person who found it put it into his own pocket...recently, the yixing municipal people's court applied the civil code to conclude a case of unjust enrichment, and ruled that the "money finder" should return the money to the original owner in accordance with the law, leading the social integrity with judicial fairness.

elderly people cannot keep up with mobile payment

67-year-old lao han lives in daibu town, liyang city. daibu town is located in the southern part of liyang city and borders xizhu town, yixing city to the east. there are many industrial parks around it. lao han often travels between the two places, running a small business of recycling scrap steel.

like most rural elderly people, lao han has not been able to cross the "digital divide". although he has bought a smartphone, he mostly uses it to watch short videos to kill time, and most of the functions are left unused, especially the payment function. lao han is always skeptical and worried that online payment is not safe, so he is still used to carrying cash. under the influence of diversified payment scenarios, family and friends also tried to guide lao han to use mobile payment, but he refused.

when shopping in daily life, lao han always uses small amounts of cash because it is easy to carry. when he goes out to recycle scrap steel, he will estimate the purchase amount, prepare the cash in advance, and put it in a trouser pocket that he believes is safe.

lost cash: looking for the finder

on the morning of december 16, 2023, lao han and his partner lao li went to collect scrap steel. when he left home, he counted 63 rmb notes with a face value of 100 yuan. as usual, he habitually tied them with a rubber band and folded them in half, and put them in the back pocket of his pants. for safety reasons, he also fastened the pocket button. li drove a three-wheeled truck and took lao han to a steel plant to buy scrap steel from boss feng. lao han did not have enough cash, so lao li finally paid with his mobile phone.

after loading the scrap steel, it was lunchtime, so lao han and lao li drove to a nearby fast food restaurant for lunch. when they arrived at the snack bar, the parking space was full, so lao han got off first and lao li went to look for an empty parking space nearby. after lunch, the two of them took the scrap steel to the recycling station to sell. when they divided the hard-earned money and were about to go home, lao han realized that the money in his pants pocket was missing. he hurried back to the fast food restaurant and the steel factory to look for it. lao han was so anxious that he called the police immediately.

the police immediately retrieved the surveillance footage at the entrance of the fast food restaurant. the footage showed that at 12:16 p.m. that day, something fell out of han's pocket when he opened the door of the three-wheeled truck and got out. at 12:18 p.m., a man on an electric tricycle passed by the place where the money was lost, stopped, turned back to pick up the money from the ground, and quickly left the scene. the police tracked the man through the surveillance footage and identified him as a local villager named ning. when the police went to ning's house to ask if he had picked up the money, he denied it.

"1,000 yuan" or "6,300 yuan"?

"he must have picked up the money!" old han was unwilling to accept this. in order to protect his own rights, in march 2024, he went to court and demanded that ning return the 6,300 yuan he had lost.

during the trial, ning did not appear in court after being summoned by the court. when the presiding judge contacted him by phone, he changed his words and admitted that he had found the money: "i found it, i found one thousand yuan, everyone who worked there knew it."

in order to prove the authenticity of the 6,300 yuan in cash he carried, lao han requested witnesses boss feng and lao li to appear in court.

boss feng stated that lao han and lao li often went to his factory to collect scrap iron. lao han did not know how to use wechat to transfer money. when checking out, lao han paid in cash when the amount was small, and lao li paid by wechat when the amount exceeded 3,000 yuan. on that day, lao han went to his company to collect scrap iron. the amount weighed should be 7,570 yuan. lao han took out the money and counted it. it was 6,300 yuan. the money was not enough, so lao li paid with his mobile phone. he saw lao han fold a stack of cash and put it in the back pocket of his pants.

lao li stated that he and lao han were collecting scrap metal together. lao han only brought more than 6,000 yuan in cash, so he asked him to take more than 1,000 yuan. however, he did not bring any cash, so he paid directly with his mobile phone. lao han kept the more than 6,000 yuan in cash. lao li also provided a payment receipt for 7,570 yuan transferred via wechat.

after trial, the yixing court held that if the beneficiary has no legal basis to obtain improper benefits, the person who suffered losses can request the beneficiary to return the benefits. in this case, the surveillance video recorded the whole process of lao han's lost property being discovered and picked up by ning. ning admitted that he found 1,000 yuan. the court confirmed the fact that lao han's lost property was cash and was picked up by ning. the focus of the dispute was whether the amount of cash lost by lao han was 6,300 yuan.

according to the statements of boss feng and lao li, they can be mutually confirmed with lao han's claim that he lost 6,300 yuan in cash. again, according to daily life experience and logical reasoning, people are often anxious when they lose their wallets, and they are most eager to find their lost wallets as soon as possible. in this case, the statements made by calling the police are more credible and often most in line with reality. therefore, lao han called the police after losing his cash and claimed that he had lost 6,300 yuan. the authenticity of this statement is higher and it is likely to be closest to the objective facts. in summary, the source of the 6,300 yuan in cash that lao han claimed to have lost is legitimate, and it is legitimate and reasonable to carry the money. it is also consistent with the statement made to the police, and can form a complete chain of evidence, which meets the requirements of the high probability evidence rule of civil litigation. it is highly likely that lao han lost 6,300 yuan in cash, and the court confirms it. in the end, the court ruled that ning should return 6,300 yuan to lao han in accordance with the law.

modern express/modern+ reporter zhu jingrun correspondent yi faxuan