Flatmate says I owe her £600

[Digestivesandcheese]

I was meeting my flatmate (who is also a good friend) in London recently and agreed to bring her weekend bag with me on the train (She was meeting her DM earlier in the day for a trip to the Theatre) I had a rucksack containing my things for the weekend.
I got off the train in London and realised I had stupidly left her bag on the train. I got back on the train but the bag was gone! It hasn't turned up in lost property. I have chased up several times.
My friend says I owe her £600 for the bag and contents. I agree it was my fault but can I claim compensation from the rail company as the bag hasn't turned up? If not, I will have to borrow money to pay my friend for her things

I actually can’t believe that some of the comments here are even opening this for discussion. It is NOT harsh of your friend to want you to replace the items that you lost.

I also can’t believe that someone suggesting she got a full perfume as replacement when it wasn’t full in the bag is the friend making profit off OP.

OP, I say this respectfully, you were careless. The fact is that if you weren’t careless, on this occasion, your friend would have their bag. Yes it was probably stolen, but it was stolen because you left it. You absolutely need to replace the things, either by cash or an itemised list of what was in the bag that you can purchase. I’m so glad some of you aren’t my friends.

@notlucreziaborgia

Yes, I looked this up too. I still think if she actually took it to a lawyer the chances they would decide her friend owed the entire cost of all her stuff new are extremely low.

Firstly, there was no contract so the expectations are lower as her friend never laid out what she would expect from the OP in this situation.

Secondly the only reason she didn't treat the bag the same way as her own was because she wouldn't normally have had it and genuinely forgot. I think they would allow something for human error there.

Thirdly we still don't actually know if the bag was stolen before she forgot to take it off the train or in the moments before she went back and until this is explored fully she is being blamed for something which actually may have been down to theft.

Also I think it very unlikely they would award new for old costs as everyone seems to think. It's not like you're actually going to buy half a lipstick, you're just being reimbursed for half the cost assuming you might have used quite a bit of some items, rather than you making a profit from the situation.

Finally she can't afford the payments and I know for a fact having worked with people in that situation that CRB would certainly take that into account. I would imagine any legal service also would.

But, as I said she'd be free to give it a try.

In terms of my comments on the flatmates character, perhaps that is unfair but I do feel there's quite an undertone that she has the upper hand over the OP and has an influence on her as the better off, perhaps more confident person of the two so I wouldn't find it hard to believe the OP felt she couldn't really say no to the favour in the first place.

There doesn’t have to be an explicit contract. In agreeing to take the bag OP accepted responsibility for the bag and would be expected to treat it with care. It doesn’t matter that she wouldn’t normally carry the bag, she accepted responsibility for its safekeeping and was admittedly negligent in an environment where you are explicitly advised to take care of your belongings due to high risk of theft. It is literally signposted in across the station and the trains themselves.

OP isn’t an infant, she’s an adult, and an independent one at that. ‘Didn’t feel able to say no’ to a friend she’s close enough to live and city break with is a poor defence. She is responsible for standing up for herself, unless she’s incapacitated in some demonstrable way.

My point is that ‘let the friend speak to a lawyer’ isn’t in any way guaranteed to end up in OP’s favour here. She could indeed be held liable. Anyway, she arranged to pay the friend back and at this point likely has.

So the train was still in the station where you got off. You realised your mistake quickly and got back on to retrieve bag that you left and it had disappeared? I don’t think it would have been taken in that one or two minutes do you? Is this what happened?
Irrespective of whose bag it was if one of my bags was missing like this I would get immediate assistance. Was this a terminus? Was the case in a rack? Was it by your body during the travel? Your present story doesn’t sound quite credible. Are you sure it wasn’t taken en route? I really don’t think people travel on trains to steal bags or luggage. I also can’t understand how a flatmate for whom I had done a favour would see it as my fault. How long was this journey?
Why didn’t you say that when you got off her bag was not there..? (which given the one or two minutes was true?)
How would any passenger know that the bag had been left?
And theft is theft, how horrible for you. Report it. I don’t think your flatmate can hold you responsible under the above circumstances.

I really don’t think people travel on trains to steal bags or luggage

Just to note, this is actually a known method of theft. It’s not normally impulsive - it’s pre-planned. If the bag did look expensive and the OP put it somewhere out of sight, it would have been targeted.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/train-luggage-thief-stole-30000-13590680

There are multiple other examples online

Given it is not clear when the theft happened it would be hard to demonstrate that it was due to OP not taking "reasonable care". I think it very unlikely the friend would get the value that the items would cost new either.

We don't actually know that it was stolen in the two minutes she left it. It could have happened earlier.

Regardless, she was careless and lost the bag. She replaces the items.

@notlucreziaborgia

I'm aware there was an implied contract but, as your own quote lays out, that differs from an actual contract in that "The standard of care is lower than if there had been a contract.”

So, for example if it had been her bag she left I imagine she would have done exactly the same, jumped back on to look for it. If she'd just walked off because it wasn't hers that would have been treating it differently.

And yes, I accept if her friend went the legal route they could decide against her but no insurance company or legal institution would reach that decision before fully exploring the possibility of theft which in this scenario seems ridiculously high so she certainly wouldn't have had a penny yet and I really hope she hasn't from the OP until all of that has been investigated.

Plus, for all the reasons I stated previously, I still think it would be very unlikely they would ask her to pay the full cost of new for old.

OP has admitted she was negligent. What could have happened in alternative scenarios is irrelevant. She took her own bag when she left the train and forgot the friend’s bag. She did not meet the baseline standard of care she was reasonably expected to meet (treat someone else’s belongings you’ve assumed responsibility for as you would treat your own), even without there being a contract.

I don’t know what way it would go in court, given that it’s not reaching court. The point is that actually, yes, despite what some may hope, OP could indeed be considered legally liable.

The bag was actually stolen rather than lost. Maybe if she had been more careful it wouldn't have been stolen but we don't know that for sure that it was due to lack if reasonable care. Thieves tend to target expensive looking bags and it may have been stolen earlier in the journey.

If the theft happened earlier why didn’t you know about it? Sit with your friends stuff. You take it and you assume responsibility. Carelessness has caused this and she should absolutely arrange to reimburse her flatmate.

The standard of care, sans contract, is that she would be expected to treat her friend’s belongings as she would her own. Even if she’s left her own things behind before, on this occasion she took her own bag with her. She was admittedly negligent.

Taking it to court could end up costing OP more than £600, even if only held partially liable. She could be held fully liable. That’s without taking anything else into consideration, such as having to pay out to cover more rent/find alternative housing. Clearly OP isn’t inclined to go down this route. OP agreed to pay her and secured the £600 from her mother, so I imagine the friend has been paid by now.

Not even noticing that the bag was stolen before you got up and walked away without even thinking of it isn’t the defense you think it is.

Isn't it? Given, the outcome would have been the same regardless of when OP noticed I think it is a "defense".

It wouldn't cost more than £600. Small claims court fees would be about £70 and I doubt she would be held fully liable to pay new for old.

No, because it would demonstrate even greater negligence.

Defense/defence - no need for the quotation marks. I use both American and British English. I’m not a native speaker of either and as such neither one is more or less correct than the other.

It was in your care. You agreed to take it ,so it's your responsibility. However. You only have her word for it the value was £600. If neither of you have insurance. I would ask her for a breakdown of what was in the bag and values. Including the bag itself. Find out the amount of value and then make her an offer. Some items will have depreciated so don't just pay the full £600 without receipts or at least proof of what she had in the bag and the age of the items.

You doubt it based on what you hope to be true. She absolutely could be held fully liable for an amount greater than £600 (you’re assuming the £600 is the entire cost, rather than just a portion of it). In the event she lost there is a significant likelihood that she would also be held liable for her own court costs and those of her friend.

Goodness. You are keen to be offensive.
I am quite right in calling the flatmate's behaviour 'appalling'. Such entitlement. the OP is not her porter.

In terms of duty of care, I very much doubt that a court would find her negligent. Realistically, if people are able to steal things from the counter in front of the owner of a shop, there is only so much you can do to guard a bag on a train, short of actually sitting on it, and then you can damage it instead. In such situations, all you can do is taking a balanced approach and hope for the best. So the fact that it was stolen does not prove carelessness, even if the OP is blaming herself. We are now at risk of blaming the victim of a crime for the fact that the crime took place: scary!

The 2nd bag wasn't hers so she had no reason to access it during the journey and would not have been on her lap. It is possible that BOTH bags were on an overhead rack or vestibule rack and, at the end of the journey, the OP got up, saw her bag, picked it up and left. If the friend's bag had already been taken, then it was not next to her bag and this would explain why she didn't pick it up when leaving the train.

The fact that she remembered her own bag before remembering her friend's is not necessarily an indicator of not treating her friend's bag with the same care as her own. If someone is used to carrying a handbag, then it becomes an extra limb and is almost impossible to forget as it feels weird to walk without it. So it is the extra item that gets forgotten, not your own bag. That's why people are always forgetting umbrellas: they are an extra item we aren't expecting to carry.

I further think it is relevant that the favour was to deliver the bag as an incidental extra on top of a journey she was already making. This makes it much easier for her to forget it. Had the OP been travelling for the sole purpose of delivering the bag, she probably would not have left the train without taking the bag, if, of course, the bag hadn't already been stolen by then.

Putting myself in a similar position, I once went to visit a friend and decided to take her some old curtains of mine she wanted to use for something. I left them behind on the coach because the purpose of the journey was to visit a friend as I had done many times and I didn't usually carry a bag of curtains. Had I been making the journey specifically to deliver the curtains, they would have been less likely to slip my mind. (Exactly as the OP did, I went back for them minutes later: fortunately, they were still there).

It's actually based on trying to get money back from airlines/insurance for lost luggage or any other damage. You need receipts for everything and even then it's not new for old. I also doubt they would believe there was valuable jewellery etc in the bag.

Arghh. Tricky one. Technically it's your responsibility for losing it, sadly, but I personally wouldn't ask for the full amount in her position, taking into account the fact that it is valuable stuff that you may not he able to afford to replace, and that you were doing me a favour in the first place. Can you afford to replace it? If so, probably best to do it unless you want to lose your friend. If not, explain that and offer a compromise? Either way, don't agree to look after other people's luggage again!

So a different situation entirely then.

She could be held partially or fully liable. That’s a fact. Again, you’re assuming that £600 covers the entire amount lost on an old for new basis, when it could very well cover only a portion of what was lost on a like-for-like basis.

Whether she would or wouldn’t be held legally liable is something we can only speculate on, but on the surface there is plenty, already detailed, that would work in the friend’s favour. In the event OP lost in this hypothetical scenario, she would likely end up finding herself also liable to cover not just her own legal costs, but those of her friend. OP would be taking a big gamble, and generally it’s advised that you don’t gamble with money you can’t afford to lose.

I think we've said everything that needs to be said. The OP isn't asking if she should pay (she was asking if she could get the money back from the train company) so hasn't provided full details of how exactly the bag went missing and we're having to make all sorts of reasonable assumptions.

If the OP wanted to get legal advice, she would have given more details than she has provided us with, so it is very hard to know with whom the judge's sympathies would lie. It would certainly be a weird case, as there is probably so little documented evidence, and I think the judge would be annoyed to have to handle it in the event the friend were to sue. My guess is the judge would try to work out which party's unreasonableness had led to it going to court in the first place and then somehow rule against her, in the absence of anyone having done anything especially stupid.

I think it's fine as long as people are enjoying themselves, but I wonder if we're really helping the OP or not at this point.