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Free booklets?

Question:

I work in the receiving end of a Publishing House. We just received from our printers a shipment of thin pamphlets 320 per box. On the outside of the box they taped (with packaging tape) a few copies on the outside of the box – to show what was inside. These were taped in a way that the printers intended that they would be destroyed. We were not charged for them. We did manage to carefully remove the booklets. May we keep them – or does it belong to the company I work for?
Answer:

The extra pamphlets do not belong to you. If the publishing company is merely an agent that arranges the publishing on behalf of the clients, then the extras belong to the client. If however the company takes the order and then subsequently sells it to the client then the extras belong to the company.

(A good rule of thumb is to ask what would happen if the order was destroyed through unpreventable means. If the publishing house must create a new product, it is clear that the product belongs to the company until passed on to the client, whereas if the client would suffer the loss then the company is merely an agent of the client.)

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