I discovered an unknown treasure

What the OP did was the right and honorable thing to do.
Bravo

But was it required under the law?
In other words, could the widow go to Court and void the deal.

It's been a long time since first year law school, but if I remember correctly,
this is a case of mutual mistake and the party who suffered the loss can void the deal.

From the Restatement of Contracts:

152. When Mistake of Both Parties Make a Contract Voidable

Where a mistake of both parties at the time of contract was made
as to a basic assumption on which the contract was made
has a material effect on the agreed exchange of performances,
the contract is voidable by the adversely affected party
unless he bears the risk of the mistake under the rule stated in 154.


154. When a Party Bears the Risk of a Mistake

A party bears the risk of mistake when
the risk is allocated to him by agreement of the parties, or
he is aware, at the time the contract is made,
that he has only limited knowledge with respect to the facts to which the mistake relates
but treats his limited knowledge as sufficient, or
the risk is allocated to him by the court
on the ground that it is reasonable in the circumstances to do so.
 
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My hat is off to you sir. It is my feeling also..you help widows and orphans. I buy muck in the line of reloading items from deceased shooters. Always try to be fair and honest.. One lady just wanted me totake the stuff out of the garage . Can't take advantage of anyone like that..Hopefully someone like the OP will buy my stuff after the last roundup..
 
You did the right thing!

I fix appliances for a living. Last week I did an after hours job for a repeat customer for one of his tenants - dryer - no heat.

He was in the other room when I tore it apart, so full of lint it was that only a cleaning and oiling of the rollers would do since I was already there.

I find a lot of things in machines, mostly odds and ends, coins and sometimes paper money. I once found an inexpensive chain and medallion, when I gave it to the woman, she started crying and said it was her recently passed mother's and they had been looking for it.

Back to last week...

As I was removing the lint, I found a beautiful ladies white gold ring set with two 1/2 carat diamonds and two 1/2 carat sapphires. HOLY ****!

He would have never known, but I gave it to him straight away. He said the tenant and her fiance were to get married the following week and I thought it might be a family heirloom.

Turns out it wasn't hers', I kind of wish I had offered him something for it for my daughter, but I didn't and that's just the way it goes.

I was really hoping it was a family treasure and was in the background when he asked her to see her reaction - denied. :)
 
You were truly a friend to her husband.
A friend of mine had passed away and we did a clean out of his house. Relatives had been there within hours of his passing and they took a box he had kept dollars in that he had gotten as change. His wife figured there was possibly a couple hundred in the box. The sorry folks left behind much more. He had one of those big water cooler jugs and another good size jug both filled to the top with coins he also threw in there at the end of each day. We couldn't begin to pick up the jugs and had to roll them through the house and up a board into a pickup. The bank coin counter was busy for quite awhile and the total was around $2700.
I was glad the sorry relatives were to lazy to get the jugs out. His wife sure needed the money because what he thought was a million dollar life insurance was actually an accidental policy. He died of a heart attack so she didn't get a dime from the policy he paid on for so long thinking she would be taken care of.
Yep cudos to you for being a true friend.
 
Good job sir, it makes one feel right with the world.

Once I walked into my local bank, no customers, the girls were yakking at each other. I notice a stack of bills on the floor in front of a teller window, I picked them up, coulda stuck them in my pocket, this was way befoe security cameras. I asked them how found money worked, turn it in there and if unclaimed I get to keep it. OK, I'm honest and would llike to think others would do the same.

Turned out to be one of the towns richest and lesser liked fellow.

He owned many business buildings leased to others and a big strip mall outside the main gate of the Army base. His pawn shop was the 1st one eyes right, leaving. He gave many a GI $20-25 bucks for guns worth much more. I know they chose to do it.

A friend and I made a trip by there once a week to look over the guns. He had used guns priced at exactly new prices. We eventually backed off to every month or so. He wanted to go and in we went. The owner knew me and my Dad very well, he used to fish with us and come up to fish in our farm ponds. He wouldn't cut me a nickle on the guns he took out of pawn.

I said hello, he said, Hello. I expected a thanks for turning in my 4 hundred bucks. Nope, he remained quiet. Not happy I said I heard you dropped some money on the bank floor, how'd you get back?

He was just so slick, said he got it back by going back to the bank and demanding it. I said what if no one turned it in, you may have dropped it on the way to your car or business. He said he would have made the bank pay up for shorting him, but it was counted, how could they short you?

I grew tired of egging him on and told my buddy who knew what happened time to go. Never went back.

I did not like him, he was not a nice person, but I knew I did the right thing for me. What goes around comes around, a few weeks later my ex took my paycheck, forged my name and cashed it. She put it on top of the car and drove off, a guy and his wife saw it and picked it up, they spent some time calling around to find out who she was and where she lived. I answered the phone during my grilling of my ex, thought it was like other times, she went out and blew it on scratch cards. I think the call saved me jail time.

They brought it by the house. It would have been a hungry 2 weeks.
That gentleman and his wife did the right thing for their souls too.

Faulkner, sir I admire you. Lost husband, needs money and you show up like an angel on duty. Both she and you will feel good for a long time.
 
You Sir, your character and honesty is to be applauded !! You both were dealing in good faith for reloading supplies, saved coinage is not reloading supplies. I would like to think that most people would have done the same thing as you. My deceased dad always said that 99% of the people are honest, it's just the 1% you have to watch out for.
 
This story reminds me of an incident that happened to me about 35 years ago, I haven't told this one in a while !! This is where trying to do the right thing will sometimes get you into trouble.

I had just got married a few weeks before this happened, money is tight, as with all newlyweds. When your in love, two can live as cheap as one !! ( as long as one doesn't eat ! Lol ) My wife worked at a local furniture factory and I worked in the oil fields. This rural convenience store we shopped at had a discount off-brand soda pop machine outside. Name brand soda pops were 35 cents at that time and this particular machine sold soft drinks for 15 cents each. We purchased two soft drinks for less than one name brand. One night I went down to buy us a round of pop, it was after the store had closed. I put the money in and punched the button, the soda pop fell to the bottom and the machine started spitting out change. It wouldn't quit, it just kept coming like a slot machine. By the time it got done, my 15 cent investment had netted me about 80 some dollars. I put "MY" other 15 cents in and got another soda pop and this machine does the same thing all over again. Now I got about $150 dollars in change. I had a five gallon bucket in the bed of my truck, I get it and put this money in it. It's heavy but I manage to get it loaded and head toward the house. My wife just couldn't believe it. We know this money is not ours and we are not entitled to it, no problem, tomorrow morning I'll stop in the store after it opens and return the money to it's rightful owner. Next day, store opens, I waltz right up in the store with this five gallon bucket about half full of change and told the clerk what happened and she said that I was a fool. She said nobody in their right mind would do such a thing. She said that I had beat-up that machine and felt guilty about stealing that money and was trying to cover up my act of thievery. She said that the particular machine in question had been robbed several times in the last few weeks and that I was probably the one who had been doing it. Well after some very heated words were exchanged, not so nice words, she calls the man who owns the store. I explained to him what had happened and all I wanted to do was return what didn't belong to me, the cashier wouldn't take it and she falsely accused me of stealing because nobody would do what I was trying to do. He took the money and appollogised for his employee. A week later he looked me up and told me that the machine had been checked out and found to be malfunctioning and that he again he was sorry that I was treated as such. He said in all of his years as a store owner I was the only one who ever done anything like that. He's still in business, he has four convenience stores now and I still stop in.
 
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