jimu57 wrote:In the state on VA you have to be licensed as a locksmith or am owner of tow truck operator business (auto lockout only) thru the Department of Criminal Justice Services. I am in process of locksmith licensing. I helped a lady the other day traveling with 2 cats and a dog that accident locked her car door with the keys inside while pumping gas. I happen to have wedges, air wedge, a home made rod, so I owned her door after others had tried with a coat hanger. Technically I broke the law even without compensation fire owning the door. VA has gotten very strict. But in the rural area where I live, I doubt if I would get in trouble. In fact, there is no locksmith in the county. None!
The locksmithing laws I have looked at are civil (a civil issue with the licensing board), not criminal, and mostly (in my opinion) a way for established locksmithing firms to limit the entrance of new competitors to the marketplace. I am not a lawyer and I can not give legal advice, but my guess is that no policeman is going to enforce such licensing laws on their own any more than they would bust some lady giving haircuts on her back porch. The police could maybe run someone in for burglar tool possession, but that usually involves criminal intent and where is the criminal intent? At worst the state licensing board might try to send a nasty letter to where it thinks one's address of business is warning them to get licensed.
Regarding the criminality of the OP, in some (or most or all--I am not a lawyer) states there is the doctrine of competing harms. An example of it is: "Conduct that the person believes to be necessary to avoid imminent physical harm to that person or another is justifiable if the desirability and urgency of avoiding such harm outweigh, according to ordinary standards of reasonableness, the harm sought to be prevented by the statute defining the crime charged." In other words, break the
Even for a pet, the penalty given for animal abuse (as a measure of the harm that society sees in animal suffering) is invariably greater than the penalty for petty vandalism, therefore one is (in my non-lawyer opinion) justified in "vandalizing" the window to prevent the agonizing death of an animal under the theory of competing harms.
Regarding civil actions, like ltdbjd said in his excellent post, it would be what, $100 small claims court? And in most towns if word got out enough upset people would step forward that I would wager the $100 would not come out of your pocket. Incidentally,if I remember business law correctly, if a locksmith were to happen upon such a situation by chance and unlocked a car (or even busted a window), then legally they can bill the owner of the car for services rendered even if the owner was not there to consent to it. The legal term is "unjust enrichment." If they want to be a jerk and bill you for the window then fine, bill them the reasonable and customary fee in that area for a car lockout.
If anything, one should be concerned about the reverse situation. What if one does not act? Many years ago I was an EMT and there was the "duty to act." If you were there where someone was injured, and you did not provide care up to your level of certification (scope of practice was the term I think), then you were liable. If you are next to the car, you are a locksmith, or otherwise know how to open cars in some way, and you do not, then that is when I would really worry about ending up in court. And a dead baby is going to cost a lot more than a broken window, in every way imaginable.
