You Decide: The Case Of The Lost Key & Whose Fault it Was

It’s April and time to get your tires changed which I had scheduled and planned to do yesterday. I store my tires at my brother’s place because he has a shed in the backyard and it would otherwise sit relatively empty. His tires and my tires plus a lawnmower are the only things that go in the shed. Enough for a thief to steal? I would say so. That’s why there is a lock and key for the shed door.

Yesterday I went over to my brother’s and from up above on his deck he tossed me the key for the shed. I went back, unlocked it, and moved all my tires to my vehicle. He didn’t help me because he had covid — which was fine, he had a valid excuse. After I was done with the last tire, I locked the shed back up and on my way to deliver the last tire to my car, I tossed the key up to my brother. His covid hands couldn’t make the catch and the key hit him on the hands then fell onto the deck and through the cracks. It’s gone.

It’s a case of — was it a bad toss or a bad catch?

To paint the picture perfectly for you and to clear my name, my brother was on his deck maybe 7ish feet above the ground. I tossed him the key from about 10 feet back and I lobbed it up. Pop fly style. The toss was perfect, so much so that my brother got underneath it, and it bounced off his hand to the ground…and through the cracks.

I went under the deck did a 10-minute scan and couldn’t find it — so now here we are, to find out who is at fault.

For a visual, this is a similar sequence.

That guy should have had it, it was catchable — just like my brother.

My brother’s tires are in his Jeep waiting to be moved to the shed themselves, but he is locked out of his own shed. Locked out, because he missed the catch. A huge unwritten rule when it comes to playing catch — is if it touches your fingers, or your hand — it’s catchable. I live my life by that, and I’m not alone.

People are always complaining it’s the other person’s fault, bad throw vs bad catch. It’s determined by if the toss was catchable, and in this case, it was.

I think it’s only fair that my covid ridden brother needs to get lock cutters, deal with the lock, move his tires into his shed, buy a new lock, likely one with a combination, and lock up his tires.

Who is at fault?