Finders keepers, plaintiffs weepers.
Nearly two years after four teenagers found $6,061 while traipsing through a wooded lot in Crystal Lake, the Illinois Appellate Court has ruled the kids can keep the cache.
The court`s order has left a list of losers: William and Gladys Stevens, two attorneys who own the vacant lot; McHenry County; and the State of Illinois.
The winners are Alma Lopez, Tom Farrell Jr., Ryan Baassler and Jennifer Moore.
The kids and their parents vividly described the fortuitous spring day in 1990 when they came into a good deal of money, not knowing it would take months of legal wrangling to finally get a piece of their find.
It all started when the four kids took a walk, more or less in a straight line, near the Stevenses` home on unincorporated land northwest of Crystal Lake.
Suddenly, Jennifer stumbled slightly. ”Her foot caught (the pile of money) and kicked it up,” said Donald Baassler, Ryan`s father. ”She looked down. And there it was, a variety of things-ones and fives and 20s and some hundreds.”
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Then came a scramble for cash worthy of a game show.
”They each grabbed as much as they could. It wasn`t equal at all,” said Tom Farrell Sr., a data processor for an auditing department whose son was 13 at the time and now is a 15-year-old sophomore at Crystal Lake South High School.
Farrell said his son managed to snag ”somewhere between $800 and $1,000.”
”He`s always been kind of slow all his life as far as money is concerned,” Farrell explained. ”He`s not a greedy kid, so he got the spillover.”
When Farrell`s son informed his father of the find, ”I told him we`d have to contact the authorities.”
Before Farrell had called the other families involved, police showed up at their doors. Farrell said they told him: ”We understand you found some money. We`re here to collect it and give you a receipt,” adding that the money would be deposited with the county sheriff.
The teenagers were unable to remember whether it was April 30 or May 1 when they found the money, but police arrived to collect it on May 4.
McHenry County Sheriff George Hendle then asked the courts to determine who had rightful claim to the booty.
That`s when the lawyers got involved. And a second, even more furious scramble for cash ensued.
Farrell said seven attorneys showed up for the first court hearing in January 1991: the Stevenses, representing themselves, plus lawyers for the families, the Illinois Attorney General`s Office and the McHenry County state`s attorney.
How the money got on the site of the Stevenses` 2-acre home near Crystal Lake is known only to the person who left it there in loose dirt about 100 feet from the house and near two animal holes.
”We have no idea how it got there,” said Gladys Stevens, an assistant attorney general who has lived in the house with her husband, an assistant Cook County public defender, for about six years.
After the four teens eventually turned the money over to McHenry County sheriff`s detectives, Hendle filed suit in McHenry County Circuit Court asking Judge Michael J. Sullivan if the money should go to the county.
The Stevenses argued that the money should go to them, on the theory that it was ”imbedded” in their land. The youths contended they were entitled to it as lost property if the real owner failed to show up.
And the state was a possible future owner on grounds that it would be unclaimed property after seven years.
Sullivan rejected all of the adults` theories and held that the youths were entitled to claim ownership if a McHenry County Circuit judge rules that the real owner failed to show within one year of the money being found. The money was held by Hendle for safekeeping during the litigation.
Assistant State`s Atty. Glenn Gable, who represented Hendle, said the only similar case in Illinois was about two years ago in Cook County, where a circuit judge ruled that the children involved should get the money they found.
”But I don`t think that the case ever got to the appellate court level,” Gable said. ”This is probably the first case that has gone that far.”
The kids who found the Crystal Lake stash said the owners of the property, the Stevenses, never warned them to stay off it or posted ”No Trespassing” signs. Gladys Stevens said such signs have since been posted and torn down by trespassers.
After stumbling upon the cash, the kids ran to Jennifer Moore`s house and counted it behind a shed. Detectives learned of the find after Alma Lopez told a woman about it while baby-sitting.
Detectives recovered virtually all of the money except for a few dollars Moore had spent on a T-shirt and food. But she turned the T-shirt over to authorities.
In the Feb. 6 opinion in Elgin, the Appellate Court ruled that the youths were not trespassers, on the grounds that the Stevens knew or should have known that ”children were in the habit of entering their land,” a common spot for bike-riding.
Under Illinois law, a finder is not entitled to ”mislaid” property but is entitled to claim lost or abandoned property. The appeals court held that there was insufficient evidence that the money had been buried or mislaid.
Gladys Stevens said she and her husband are considering filing an appeal with the Illinois Supreme Court within the allowed 30 days.
Ryan Baassler, a skinny 15-year-old with shoulder-length hair, on Wednesday night explained the teens` reaction to their discovery: ”We were just, like, in shock. I was in shock for a couple of days. Still am.”
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Meanwhile, Tom Farrell Jr., wearing his Metallica T-shirt and black jeans, said they still had a while to wait to get their hands on the money.
”I think they said about two months or whenever the paperwork was done,”
he said, adding that he would use his share to fix up the family auto.
It was unclear Wednesday exactly how much the attorney who represented the kids would get, although Donald Baassler said the teens would divvy up the rest of the money equally this time.
When asked how much they would be dividing, Baassler said, ”Not very much, after the lawyers` fees.”