If You Steal a Riding Lawn Mower, Are You also Stealing a Car?

Posted Saturday, October 21, 2017 by Andrew Charles Huff

If you steal a lawn mower, then are you guilty of Theft of a Motor Vehicle…or just a lawn mower?

Our State Supreme Court was asked to decide that question recently and decided that a riding lawn mower does not fit the definition of a “motor vehicle” under Washington’s theft of a motor vehicle statute. The Court reasoned that the legislature had chosen not to define “motor vehicle” in the theft statute, and therefore the Court gave the term its plain and ordinary meaning. They determined that the legislature had used the term “car,” “auto,” or “auto theft” more often in its findings than the term “motor vehicle,” and that the legislature “passed this bill with the explicit purpose of curbing the rising rate of auto thefts.”