Posted on 01/28/2010 7:44:42 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Ownership battle brews over Virginia meteorite
The meteorite, which cracked into pieces on impact, landed in a doctors' office in Lorton.
By Neely Tucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 29, 2010
Today's episode of Everybody's Favorite Meteorite brings the nation disturbing news: That spunky bit of chondrite that plummeted into a Lorton doctors' office on Jan. 18, delighting an international audience with news of its fireball entrance, may not go on to a spot of glory in the Smithsonian, after all.
The doctors who were nearly bonked on the head by the thing when it came plummeting from the asteroid belt into Examining Room No. 2 in the Williamsburg Square Family Practice, gave it to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. In return, Smithsonian officials planned to give them $5,000 in appreciation. The doctors, Marc Gallini and Frank Ciampi, planned to donate the money to earthquake relief efforts in Haiti. The Smithsonian planned to put the meteorite on prominent display and study it as a 4.5 billion-year-old postcard from the formation of the solar system.
"We knew meteorite hunters would offer them something for it, and we wanted to be competitive," said Linda Welzenbach, the meteorite collections manager at the Smithsonian.
But in an extraterrestrial soap opera still unfolding, the landlords of the Virginia building that houses the doctors' office now say they are the rightful owners of the meteorite. Museum officials said the landlords informed them, midday Thursday, that they were coming to take the stone out of the Smithsonian by sundown.
Gallini and Ciampi hustled to get a lawyer to fire off a letter to the museum, barring them from releasing the stone, pending resolution of ownership.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Besides, the lease itself probably has some boilerplate in it, added at the dentist's request, that prevents the landlord from claiming "property" within the premises provided the rent is paid properly.
I'm looking for a near nekkid wrestlin' match between the dentist and his landlord out in a mudhole at the roadside where the dentist gets to bonk the landlord with the meteorite while the landlord fights back with a rolled up summons.
Ought to be interesting.
Well if the Dr. is only leasing space and there is not something in the lease agreement about meteorites, then the landlord owns it...
Is it a big blue meteorite like Joe Dirt’s?
A while back a meteorite hit an old clunker in Poughkipsee, NY..the car may have been worth $300..it’snow valued at $750k, and is exhibited all over the world..
There’s always something in a lease ~ try reading one some time ~ use a good magnifying glass. Otherwise you’ll go blind.
Seriously? If I’m a landlord and some meteor destroys a huge hunk of the value of my property by smashing its way through a roof, I’m going to figure, “hey, at least I can use the proceeds of the sale of the meteorite to fix my roof.”
The law on this is plain: The landlords own the rock.
We’ve run into this before when finding a meteor on someone’s property while doing a survey, and the ownership is not in question.
At the same time your tenants have a claim against you, so before spending the proceeds of the meteor on fixing the building, hire yourself a good lawyer because you are going to really, really, really get sued!
When you lease your property out to others ownership of falling debris may not be as clearcut as you imagine.
Once the meteorite got to the dentist's office, it's pretty obvious it belonged to the tenant (subject to whereasses and whenfores in the lease agreement, plus, this is Virginia which has got some quirky laws dating back to colonial times ~ so, get ready)
When you lease your property out to others ownership of falling debris may not be as clearcut as you imagine.
Once the meteorite got to the dentist's office, it's pretty obvious it belonged to the tenant (subject to whereasses and whenfores in the lease agreement, plus, this is Virginia which has got some quirky laws dating back to colonial times ~ so, get ready)
“We’ve run into this before when finding a meteor on someone’s property while doing a survey, and the ownership is not in question.”
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If you find meteors I would sure like your help in locating the one I saw, and documented. How do you do it? Please and thanks for any advice you can share.
I hope the good doctor made his ownership of the meteorite crystal clear, since it appears to be a carbonaceous chondrite, which fetch much higher prices than iron meteorites due to the fact that they are hard to distinguish from terrestrial rocks, are seldom found and therefore scarce.
11 posted on Thu 21 Jan 2010 08:56:57 PM MST by SpaceBar
called it.
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