1. What was each party’s (i.e., Grande/Spann, Jennings, and Bueghly) theory of the case as to why they should get the found cash?

2. Why is it important for the court to determine whether or not the property has been abandoned? 

3. How could the facts of the case be changed to lead to a conclusion that Jennings should prevail? How could the facts be changed to lead to a conclusion that Bueghly should prevail?

Robert A. Spann (Spann) lived in his Paradise Valley home until he died in 2001. His daughter, Karen  Spann  Grande  (Grande), became the personal representative of his estate. She and her sister took charge of the house and, among other things, had some repairs made to the home. They also looked for valuables their father may have left or hidden because they knew from experience that he had hidden gold, cash, and other valuables in unusual places in his house. Over the course of seven years, they found stocks and bonds, as well as hundreds of military-style green ammunition cans hidden throughout the house, some of which contained gold or cash. In 2008, the house was sold “as is” to Sarina Jennings (Jennings). Jennings hired a contractor, Bueghly, to remodel the dilapidated home. Shortly after the work began, an employee of Bueghly’s discovered two ammunition cans full of cash in the kitchen wall and found two more cash-filled ammo cans inside other walls in the house. The total amount of cash found by the employee was approxi-mately $500,000.

After the employee reported the find to his boss, Bueghly took possession of the four ammo cans. He did not tell the new owners about the money and hid the cans in his floor safe. Jennings eventually found out from the employee about the cash and contacted the police who then took protective custody of the cash. Jennings sued Bueghly for, among other things, a court declaration that Bueghly had no right to the money since Jennings was the homeowner. Bueghly filed a counterclaim for a declaration that he was entitled to the found funds as a treasure trove. In the meantime,  Grande  filed suit on behalf of Spann’s estate as the true owner. The cases were consolidated and the trial court awarded summary judgment in favor of Spann’s estate.  Jennings appealed. 

The Arizona Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s decision in favor of Spann’s estate. The court deter-mined that the ammunition cans were mislaid property since it was undisputed that the Spann estate’s representatives did not know that the money was mislaid and did not intend to abandon the funds. Once Grande learned of the discovery, she filed a probate petition to recover the property and this indicates that no abandonment occurred. The court rejected Jennings’s argument that a jury could have found that the money had been abandoned as a result of Grande consciously ignoring the possibility that additional large sums of money could be hidden in the home when she sold the house.

“Arizona follows the common law .  .  . While personal property of all kinds may be abandoned, the property must be of such a character as to make it clear that it was voluntarily abandoned by the owner. In this connection, it has been said that people do not normally abandon their money; and, accordingly, that found money will not be considered as abandoned, but as lost or mislaid property. . . Here, it is undisputed that Spann placed the cash in the ammunition cans and then hid those cans in the recesses of the house. He did not, however, tell his daughters where he had hidden the cans before he passed away. His daughters looked for and found many of the ammo cans, but not the last four. In fact, it was not until the wall-mounted toaster oven and bathroom drywall were removed that [the contractor] found the remaining cash-filled cans. As a result, and as the trial court found, the funds are, as a matter of law, mislaid funds that belong to the true owner, Spann’s estate”