Business ethics question

Thanks to everyone who have voted and posted so far! And thanks to those who do in the future.

The poll confirms my belief and the post also match my thoughts about "it's nice to be nice."

Well, to give a little more detail, I bought a ghost breeder female that was breed to 2 males, a butter het ghost and a mojave granite. I already bought the butter het ghost so it really only gained me a year (assuming the female would have produced). A mojave granite het ghost would be nice too!

My plans...
I have already notified the buyer and she is kicking herself, but being nothing but cordiale. Once the eggs hatch, what I chose to do will depend what is produced. I doubt she wants a bunch of 100% het ghost males males if that is produced. If 1 or 2 butter ghosts are produced I would offer to do a trade for something that I didn't have but is a good deal for her. If I hit awesome odds, I will just send something. Seems fair to me...

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My plans...
I have already notified the buyer and she is kicking herself, but being nothing but cordiale. Once the eggs hatch, what I chose to do will depend what is produced. I doubt she wants a bunch of 100% het ghost males males if that is produced. If 1 or 2 butter ghosts are produced I would offer to do a trade for something that I didn't have but is a good deal for her. If I hit awesome odds, I will just send something. Seems fair to me...

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Depending on the pairing, I would do the same. If it was something like a black pastel/cinnamon/pastel/etc to a normal, I would just keep most of them, offer a baby or 2, and sell the rest depending on the pairing. But if it was something like Axanthic Spider x Het Axanthic, I would obviously notify the seller and offer up a trade/send back any axanthic spiders if any axanthic spiders popped out (Just using this as an example, I could have gone ALOT crazier)

One of my friends actually had this happen to them. She bought a proven het albino girl, and she laid 7 eggs 2 weeks later. 3 albinos and the rest hets. She offered to send back two of the albinos as a nice gesture, but the seller actually BOUGHT one of the albinos. She included 2 hets with the albino.

Like others have said; You bought her, shes yours, anything that comes out of her is yours. It's just a nice gesture to offer one of the offspring, although it is not needed at all.

I was recently talking to someone that had this happen to her. She mis-sexed a snake, thought it was a male. I saw them lock up and asked her about it, she said "Oh yeah, they're both males but they're always trying to lock up with each other!" Well she sold one that happened to be the female, the buyer got eggs and the lady just said "Oh well, my bad! Good for him though!" and that was it!

If it happened to me, I would be nice and probly offer the seller something, depending on how my transaction went. Congrats though!

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Originally Posted by 771subliminal

that not the same at all, the seller didnt make a mistake and send and extra snake or mean to send a pastel and end up sending a banana. its more like they walked into the bank cashed a check and the teller gave them a misprinted bill thats worth 5 times the face value. do you have to give that bill back too? same thing goes if you sell your house and the buyer remodels and finds an original van gogh stashed between the walls its theirs to keep.

if this happened to me i would offer the seller some of the offspring but i wouldnt feel at all like i had to

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I should have thought of a better example - thanks!

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Originally Posted by iCandiBallPythons

Thats a totally different scenario thats comparative to theft, the seller knows if he or she has put a male in with the female or not, and then decides to sell the female,

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I didn't realize the seller knew...I guess if I'd thought about it, but I guess I didn't take into account the there was a 'known element of risk' that the female could have been gravid...changes the intent fore sure...

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Originally Posted by Egapal

Your scenario does not apply at all. When you go into a bank to cash a check you are not buying or selling anything. But lets assume the same person buys a soda with a 10 and gets 18 dollars and change back. Clearly the teller thinks that the buyer paid with a 20. In this case the buyer has at least a moral obligation to alert the clerk to the error. Again this is not whats going on here. The seller and buyer agreed on a price for a female proven breeder. The seller presumably knew the snake might be gravid as the seller must have introduced the snake to a male. My family has always been in the horse racing business. Let me tell you that when you sell a horse that you think is worth one thing and it turns out to be worth a lot lot more, you get nothing but a good reputation. The seller knew the risks of selling, gambled and lost. The buyer got a good deal. Thats it.

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you're right...mine didn't parallel the same way. I also didn't take into account that it would be the seller who would have known if he had attempted to breed the animal...good point

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Originally Posted by Kaorte

Wow that is a pretty amazing story. Though it is kind of strange that the old home owner would get to keep 100%. Doesn't really make sense since it isn't their property. Though the new home owner is at fault for openly bragging about what they had found..

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that's usally how these things go, depending on the state and cirumstance...

This is exactly the reason that I have not sold a few of the extra females that I have yet. I often have females that are bred but don't start developing follicles until late in the season (some just starting to develop now for me). I have some decently high dollar stuff and it would kill me if I put all of the time into raising and feeding a female and it laid eggs right after I sold it to someone. The bottom line is that the seller took a chance selling her to you. If they wanted to be sure the snake was not going to lay they should have palpated her throughout the season or just not sold her until later when it was more definite that she was not gravid. Good to hear that the seller is not trying to demand anything from you. Good luck. I hope you get a few Butter ghosts. They are really nice snakes.

After taking three [Texas] law courses, I can tell you legally [in Texas], since there was no deception, the buyer is the legal owner of the offspring. It is up to the seller to know what he/she is selling and it's value. Legally speaking of course. I would say, that ethically, you can inform the seller of clutch, but there is no legal obligation to inform him/her, or give him/her any money or babies from the clutch.

I for one, however, would offer one or two babies from the clutch [depending on the size of the clutch and space restraints, etc] to the previous seller. Even if the seller tries to sue there is no case [at least in Texas].

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. The legal "advice" stated in this post is based on Texas law and precedents from Texas law cases and laws and precedents may be different where you, the reader, live.

Thanks MaverickGTR for providing legal insight for us Texas folks!

I am split on how a scenario of this nature should be treated. I believe that what the buyer purchased and any offspring should be the sole property of the buyer.

However, if this were to happen to me personally, my conscious would not allow me to keep quiet and I would notify the former owner and offer a piece of the pie.