Ignoring abandonment, I wonder if this decision is right.

The earlier case relied upon is AVX Limited v. EGM Solders Limited. There

C rejected a consignment of red widgets supplied by D which were to be

redelivered. Unfortunately a mistake was made so that not only the boxes

of red widgets but also boxes of valuable green widgets were sent back. D,

not realising that the contents of the boxes were anything other than the

rejected red widgets, scrapped the lot.

In such a situation there is no conversion because the relevant intention

cannot be shown. D didn't intend to do anything with respect to the

destroyed green widgets, they never knew they existed.

Robot Arenas is not the same because the defendants did intend to scrap

the tv show set. Reasonably, but mistakenly, detroying someone else's

goods is a tort. If I smash up your car, reasonably but mistakenly

thinking it is mine, I am a tortfeasor.

I would have thought that the proper analysis should have been that the

defendant should have been liable, but that the analysis should not stop

there. The seller of the premises was (presumably) contractually

undertaking that they had title to sell anything left on the premises, in

which case the defendant has a claim over against the seller for the

liability incurred in destroying something they thought they had bought.

If the sellers were (unusually?) not undertaking that they had the right

to sell what was left on the premises, the defendant's correct course of

action should have been to insist that the sellers remove the set from the

hangar, rather than simply choosing to destroy someone else's goods.

I always rather liked Robot Wars on telly.

Rob

> 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

>

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>

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--

Robert Stevens

Professor of Commercial Law

University College London