QUESTION
Will I have to pay for a gift I received almost 8 years ago?
Asked on Apr 17th, 2013 on Civil Litigation - Virginia
More details to this question:
Almost 8 years ago a friend of mine gave me a rifle and got me into hunting. He handed it to me and told me it was mine so I treated it as such. About a year ago, I decided since I wasn't using it often and I had a small child in my home to trade it for a kayak. Now the person who gave it to me is suing me for the rifle. Does he have any legal standpoint and am I going to have to pay what he considers the "market value" of the rifle?
1 ANSWER
If you can establish that the rifle was an unconditional gift, you will win. However, your friend may claim that you were supposed to pay for it, or more likely that you were supposed to return it when you were done with it, or that it was a conditional gift, i.e. that he gave it to you with strings attached, such as that you would keep it and use it for hunting. If so, the outcome may depend on who the Court believes (although I would look into the statute of limitations issue, which may be important depending on what your friend's claim is; for example, if he claims that you agreed to pay him for the rifle within 30 days after he transferred it to you, his claim is almost certainly too late.)
Answered on Apr 17th, 2013 at 5:07 PM