I was inside Katla's farmhouse outside of Solitude, helping myself to some food lying around. There was a basket of potatoes on the floor, and in trying to pick out the potatoes, I accidentally picked up the basket, which I didn't want. So, I dropped it. Then I noticed that Snilling had gotten up off his chair and was looking at me somewhat strangely. I approached him and he said to me "Take care where you leave things lying around" and gave me back the basket.

I knew there were greedy NPCs who would fight over things you dropped, but I didn't know there were nice NPCs who would give you back items you've dropped. Very cool.

I've seen it happen too... same circumstances.
Picked up something I didn't want. Tried to throw it away. Got it put back IN my inventory by an NPC.

On the upside, it does help prevent areas getting too cluttered with discarded crap.
On the downside, I had to kill the fetcher who did it so I could put the wooden plate (in my case) in his corpse. Worked better that way anyway.

(It was that n'wah who works for Belethor)