Michigan Parents Ordered to Pay $45k for Destruction of Adult Son's Porn Stash

[pbrower2a]

You're telling me that this guy couldn't have rented a storage unit or gotten a lockbox?

$45K in porn, retail or wholesale, is too much for a lockbox.

[DS0816]

Interesting family.

Ottawa County, Michigan is Republican to a point for which it has not carried Democratic since 1864, according to Wikipedia, and that was for George McLellan over re-elected Abraham Lincoln.

The son should run for office. His bringing a lawsuit of this nature—and against his parents—shows us he has nerve. (Among other things.)

[Santander]

The titles were valued at $280 each? By a professional valuator? Lol, this woman has an amazing grift going.

[West_Midlander]

I would say pay $1000 to the parents for pain and suffering from having to see such items belonging to their son. Lol.

[Ferguson97]

His property is his property. If this was $45k worth of non-pornographic paintings or baseball cards, I doubt people would be saying that "his parents did him a favor".

The fact that his property was something "silly" is irrelevant.

[StateBoiler]

Was he paying his parents rent for the storage of said property in the building they own? If we're looking at this in terms of a pure property circumstance, their space is valuable and it was spent on these items I doubt they were being compensated for the space. Say it's a 1500 square foot house worth $180k, if his collection took up 15 square feet, that space was worth $1800 in a very simplistic way of looking at it.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'm reminded of an episode of L.A. Law, which I'm probably imperfectly remembering as it's been years since I've seen it.  While going through their dead father's stuff, the kids (a brother and sister IIRC) are shocked to discover he had a large porn collection. They were going to simply toss it to spare their mother the same shock. (The parents were divorced or separated, and she wouldn't be in town until the funeral.) The lecherous lawyer Arnie Becker (played by Corbin Bensen) realizes that the collection includes some valuable vintage pieces in it, and tries to convince them to sell it as that would be the fiduciarially responsible thing to do as executors of his estate. (He's not offering to buy it because that would be a conflict of interest. Arnie was lecherous but not sleazy.)  They see his point, but insist the sale be handled discreetly to spare their mother. The sale is done and gets a hefty sum.  In true L.A. Law style, the episode ends with the mother coming into the office where the kids and lawyer are discussing how to keep the source of these funds hidden from the mom and the first thing she does is ask what happened to the porn.

[NOVA Green]

This subject is deeply disturbing to me because my Mother chose to seize a large collection of extremely valuable items from me, which also had a deeply and intense emotional connection going back to my younger years.

In my particular situation, my collection happened to consist of a large number of Star Wars Action Figures, as well as some various "play-sets" in different states of disrepair.

As an adult Son, on multiple equations, I have requested my "Star Wars Toys" back, and despite the fact that 95% of them overall were purchased for me, and not my two Sisters, my Mom has claimed that she won't return them to my possession because "Me and My Sisters Would fight over them".

Honestly, I would not be surprised if she had sold them over the Years, and is lying to me as she has before, when it comes to how she has disposed of her children's property.

I just want my toys back, or at least for her to admit publicly what she did with my toys, since I believe both of my adult Sisters in their Mid '40s would agree with my perspective.

Parents should not dispose of their adult kids possessions under the overwhelming majority of circumstances, unless they have at least attempted to make a reasonable communication for kids to be able to pick up their property, verbal or written communication regarding "abandonment of property", or "exceptional circumstances" regarding short term changes of housing situation and lack of ability to cover the temp ability to house adult kids property.

Here I likely had 90%+ of the Action Figures on the List and my Mom stole them from me.

[Pres Mike]

No way his porn stash was worth 35k

I mean, who pays for porn? The internet is a thing...

[Thank you for being a friend...]

Ok---- total fluff and not attempt at click-bait post count to jack up my Atlas ratings, but just like many posters on Atlas, sometimes I get a bit tired of constant posting on "topical issues of the day", so more like a human interest story.

OTTAWA COUNTY, MI – A Grand Haven couple has been ordered to pay $45,000 after disposing of their son’s pornography collection.

David Werking, 43, sued his parents after they threw away what a judge called “a trove of pornography and an array of sex toys.”

U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney in Kalamazoo ordered Beth and Paul Werking to pay $30,441.54 to their son and $14,519.82 to his attorney. Maloney earlier granted the son’s request for summary judgment but delayed a ruling on damages.

The judge denied the son’s request for treble damages, which can be awarded under Michigan’s conversion statute.

Maloney said that a defense-hired expert in pornography valuation, Dr. Victoria Hartmann, determined the destroyed collection’s value to be $30,441.54, the amount he ordered the defendants to pay.

Hartmann could not provide a value for 107 titles on the son’s list.

“However, given the wide range of valuations for individual pieces and the inability of Dr. Hartmann to even estimate the value of these pieces, the Court declines to use an average value to award damages for these titles,” Maloney wrote.

....

https://www.oregonlive.com/trending/2021/08/parents-ordered-to-pay-thousands-for-destroying-sons-porn-stash-judge-rules.html

Moral of the story ( I guess) is do not get rid of your adult children's property simply because you don't approve of the items in question because of your moral values.

Now obvious question, from a legal perspective is the "valuation" on the adult sons porn stash?

I would imagine if it were digital content the plaintiff might have had a much more difficult time getting proper compensation from his parents, unless he were to present proof of online transactions and payments and accounts not able to be recovered, etc...

Any Atlas Legal Brainiacs want to pitch in on this one?

dayum. this is too funny

[emailking]

This subject is deeply disturbing to me because my Mother chose to seize a large collection of extremely valuable items from me, which also had a deeply and intense emotional connection going back to my younger years.

In my particular situation, my collection happened to consist of a large number of Star Wars Action Figures, as well as some various "play-sets" in different states of disrepair.

As an adult Son, on multiple equations, I have requested my "Star Wars Toys" back, and despite the fact that 95% of them overall were purchased for me, and not my two Sisters, my Mom has claimed that she won't return them to my possession because "Me and My Sisters Would fight over them".

Honestly, I would not be surprised if she had sold them over the Years, and is lying to me as she has before, when it comes to how she has disposed of her children's property.

I just want my toys back, or at least for her to admit publicly what she did with my toys, since I believe both of my adult Sisters in their Mid '40s would agree with my perspective.

Parents should not dispose of their adult kids possessions under the overwhelming majority of circumstances, unless they have at least attempted to make a reasonable communication for kids to be able to pick up their property, verbal or written communication regarding "abandonment of property", or "exceptional circumstances" regarding short term changes of housing situation and lack of ability to cover the temp ability to house adult kids property.

Here I likely had 90%+ of the Action Figures on the List and my Mom stole them from me.

Man that's B.S. I'm very sorry that happened to you. She should give you your stuff back! I think a couple of adult siblings can work out who gets what. Better than no one having anything.

[DaleCooper]

Yeah, the fact that this story revolves around a porn stash makes it a bit of a joke, but property is property. As others have mentioned, there's a bit of confusion about how long and for what reason this stuff was on his parent's property anyway, but the moral of the story is, don't destroy other people's stuff. It's pretty simple and easy.