CONVERSION. As a term of the com mon law, the unauthorized assumption of the powers of the true owner over goods or personal property. The act of conversion may consist either in the destruction of the property, the sale or transfer of it to a third person, or the use of it as owner. For example, a person converts tne horse of another by wrongfully shooting it ; an auctioneer or agent for B converts the furni ture of A by selling it as the property of B, although he may believe that it is B's property; a manufacturer converts A's cotton or wool when he makes it into cloth, even though in good faith he thinks the cotton or wool is his own; a person who wrongfnlly draws out a gallon of liquor from a cask and fills up the cask with water converts the entire quantity. In each of these eases the converter wrongfully assumes the dominion over the property of a true owner, and exercises it to the exclusion of the true owner. The mere loss of property by a carrier, or its deterioration because of careless storage by a warehouseman, is not conversion, as neither car rier nor warehouseman in such ease exercises an act of ownership over it.
The eommon-law action by the owner against the converter was that of borer (q.v.), so called from the French trouser, to find, because the declaration contained an averment that the de fendant had found the property and had there after converted it to his own use. This aver ment, being in most eases fictitious, is no longer employed, and the action is now spoken of as that of conversion rather than of trover.
The amount of damages recoverable in an action of this kind is generally the value of the plaintiff's interest in the property at the time of the conversion. Whether the defendant has the right to reduce damages by tendering the property to the plaintiff is a question upon which the courts in this country are not agreed.
Upon principle it would seem he has no such In case the property is still in possession of the converter, the owner has the option of re claiming or of suing for damages. If he resorts to the latter alternative, obtains judgment, and collects it, the title to the converted property vests in the defendant. But neither in England nor in this country does title vest in the defend ant without the plaintiff's assent, unless the judgment is satisfied. See TORT; and consult the authorities there referred to.
Concersio» of 7,roperty in equity is quite different thing from the common-law tort, which we have been considering. In equity, real prop erty is treated as converted into personalty, and personal property into realty, where the owner has properly expressed his intention that such an alteration should take place. Land may be converted into the purchase money, in equity, by a contract to sell; it may be converted into per sonalty. also, by a devise in a will to sell it and distribute the proceeds. As equitable conver sion works a radical change in the legal char acter and the devolution of property, the inten tion of the owner to effect such a conversion must he clearly manifested.
The conversion of land into personalty is also brought about in the administration of the estates of bankrupts or of intestates, generally under statutory provisions. The land is sold by trustees or administrators, and the proceeds applied to the payment of debts. Conversion is applied, by some authorities, to the change of partnership debts, with the consent of creditors, into the debts of one partner, or the change of a partner's debts into those of the firm. See EQUITY: and consult the authorities there re ferred to.