Persons Entitled To Bring Action
An agent entrusted by a principal with the possession of goods is generally recognized as having a sufficient interest in the goods to enable him to maintain an action against a third person for a conversion. Some jurisdictions hold that the agent must have more than a mere right of possession. A similar result has been reached where the servant left the property in the possession of the defendant, who subsequently converted it. Where a sheriff attached chattels and delivered them for safekeeping to a person, the person was merely the sheriff's servant, and having no interest in the chattels, could not maintain an action for their conversion. Causes of action for conversion are generally assignable, so that the action may be instituted by the assignee. An officer in possession of property may ignore a conversion of the same by a wrongdoer and proceed to sell the property on execution, the purchaser then being permitted to sue the wrongdoer for the conversion of the property. A transferee of personal property, or interest therein, who acquires the right of possession by or through the transfer, may maintain an action for a conversion committed after the transfer, though he has not yet received actual possession of the goods. A creditor, having no interest, generally may not be a plaintiff in an action to retrieve a debtor's converted property. An owner of land may bring an action in conversion, but he must be in material possession of the land and of the property severed from the land at the time of the conversion.
Read more about this topic: Conversion (law)
Famous quotes containing the words persons, entitled, bring and/or action:
“To punish a man because he has committed a crime, or because he is believed, though unjustly, to have committed a crime, is not persecution. To punish a man, because we infer from the nature of some doctrine which he holds, or from the conduct of other persons who hold the same doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, is persecution, and is, in every case, foolish and wicked.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)
“To recover a buried treasure without having it disappear miraculously in the process, one must be entitled to it, and also be willing—really willing deep in his heart—to share it with the poor and helpless. Buried money, especially silver, gives off a bright glow which comes right up through the earth and can be seen as a dim light on nights when the weather is misty or there is a gentle rain.”
—Administration in the State of Ariz, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Revolution? Unscrew the flag-staff, wrap the bunting in the oil covers, and put the thing in the clothes-chest. Let the old lady bring you your house-slippers and untie your fiery red necktie. You always make revolutions with your mugs, your republic—nothing but an industrial accident.”
—Alfred Döblin (1878–1957)
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)