On 23/02/2010 15:38, William Swadling wrote:

> Andrew,

>

> This is fascinating.  I don't suppose you have a copy of the judgment?

>

> Best,

>

> Bill

>

> -----Original Message-----

> From: Andrew Tettenborn [mailto:A.M.Tettenborn@exeter.ac.uk]

> Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2010 3:35 PM

> To: obligations@uwo.ca

> Subject: Conversion with a human face

>

> A very ordinary situation lay behind a decision of Colin Edelman QC in

> the QBD on 8 February this year. You buy a commercial building (here an

> old RAF station) and find it's full of stuff (actually an old film-set)

> when you take over. Are you liable in conversion if you then trash the

> stuff, assuming -- wrongly -- that no-one cares about it?

>

> This is a difficult one. The fact that you're an involuntary bailee

> won't help: the fact that you don't have positively to look after goods

> thrust on you doesn't allow you deliberately to destroy them.

> Nevertheless Edelman manages to say you may escape even here, by

> confirming yet another hole in strict liability in conversion. A person

> in involuntary  possession of goods who reasonably believes (having in a

> suitable case made enquiries) that he's entitled to deal with them, e.g.

> because they've been abandoned, is protected from liability. In the

> event the defendant escaped on this ground.

>

> There's also a helpful suggestion (yet again) that abandonment of goods

> is possible in English law, and if shown destroys title in the same way

> as derelictio did in Rome.

>

>

> All the best

>

> Andrew

>

>    

On Bailii (sorry: I ought to have given the case name. It's Robot Arenas

Ltd & Anor v Waterf1eld & Anor [2010] EWHC 115 (QB)).

Best

A

--

Andrew M Tettenborn

Bracton Professor of Law, University of Exeter

Snailmail:

Law School

University of Exeter

Rennes Drive

Exeter EX4 4RJ

England

Phone:

Tel:             01392-263189 (int +44-1392-263189)

Fax:             01392-263196 (int +44-1392-263196)

Cellphone:       07870-130528 (int +44-7870-130528)

LAWYER, n.

One skilled in circumvention of the law. (Ambrose Bierce, 1906).