S.S.

JAIN SUBODH LAW COLLEGE

MANSAROVAR, JAIPUR

SESSION: 2018-
2019

SUBJECT: LAW
OF TORTS

TOPIC: TRESPASS
TO GOODS

SUBMITTED TO:
SUBMITTED BY:

Ms.Palak
Vashisht
Vaibhav Upadhyay

Assistant Professor BA.LLB Student

(Faculty of Law of Torts) 1sSem (Section B)

 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the Project Assignment of Law of Torts entitled ‘Trespass to Goods’
submitted by Vaibhav Upadhyay of BA.LLB Semester-1(B) for the partial fulfillment of the
requirements of the degree of BA.LLB in S.S. Jain Subodh Law College, Jaipur embodies the
work done under the supervision of Ms. Palak Vashisht

Date: 23-11-2018 SIGNATURE:

Place: Jaipur
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The success and final outcome of this project required a lot of guidance and assistance from
many people and I am extremely fortunate to have got this all along the completion of my
assignment. I respectfully thank our principal Dr. Alpana Sharma for giving me this
opportunity to do this assignment. I am extremely thankful to Ms. Palak Vashisht for
providing me all support and guidance which made me to complete the assignment in time. I
hope the project will be knowledgeable and helpful in my future.

REGARDS VAIBHAV UPADHYAY

 DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the project work entitled ‘Trespass to Goods’ submitted to S.S. Jain
Subodh Law College, Jaipur is a record of an original work done by me under the guidance of
Ms. Palak Vashisht, Faculty of Law of Torts and this work is submitted in the partial fulfillment
of the requirement for the award of the degree of BA.LLB. The content embodied in this
thesis has not been submitted to any other University or Institute for the award of any
degree of diploma.

Vaibhav Upadhyay

BA.LLB SEM 1-B

 CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. Types of Torts related to goods

3. Two forms

4. Essentials of trespass to goods

5. Self defences

6. Conversion

7. Acts of conversion

8. Differences between conversion and trespass

9. Self- defences

10. Conclusion

11. Bibliography

TRESPASS TO GOODS

INTRODUCTION
Trespass to goods, trespass de bonis asportatis, affords a remedy where there has been
a direct interference with goods in the claimant’s possession at the time of the
trespass, whether that be by taking the goods from him or damaging the goods
without removing them.Trespass and conversion deal with intentional interference
with goods. Where goods are lost or damaged as a result of the defendant’s breach of
a duty of care, an action may lie in negligence.

It consists in direct physical interference with the goods which are in the plaintiff’s
possession, without any lawful justification. It may take numerous forms, such as
throwing of stones on a car, shooting birds, beating animals or infecting them with
disease or chasing animals to make them run away from their owner’s possession. It is
also a trespass to kill a dig by giving it poisoned meat. Trespass to goods is actionable
per se, that is, without the proof of any damage. However, when the plaintiff has
suffered no loss, he will get nominal damages.

It is a wrong against possession

Any person whose possession of goods is directly interfered with, can bring this
action. A person may be either in the direct physical possession of the goods or may
have their constructive possession, e.g., as an owner of the goods or, he may possess
them through his servant or agent, as a carrier of goods or as some other bailee. But
when the owner has given up his possession, for instance by pledging the goods or
giving them to another person under the hire-purchase agreement, such a right cannot
be exercised. Trespass being a wrong against a possession rather than ownership, a
person in possession can maintain an action even though somebody else is the owner
of those goods. In Winkfield, the Postmaster-General, who was a mere bailee of the
mails could recover their value from the wrongdoer due to whose negligence the
mails, on the board of a ship, were lost. His right to recover was not affected by the
fact that he himself was not bound to compensate the owners of the mails for their
loss. “As between bailee and stranger, possession gives title and heis entitled to
receive back a complete equipment of the thing itself.”

A person in possession can sue even without any proof of his title to the goods.
A trespasser trespasser cannot take the defence of jus terti, that is, he cannot be
allowed to say that some third party not the possessor of it had a good title to the
goods. Thus, in Armory v. Delamirie, the chimney sweeper’s boy, who after finding
a jewel had given it to a jeweler to be valued, was held entitled to recover its full
value from the jeweler on his refusing to return the same.

A person having a reversionary interest in the goods, not being entitled to their
immediate possession, cannot bring an action in respect of trespass to them unless the
trespass amounts to permanent injury to the goods affecting his reversionary interest.

Direct interference

Direct physical interference without lawful justification is a trespass. The wrong

may be committed intentionally, negligently, or even by an honest mistake. A person
driving away the car, believing that to be his own, will be liable in trespassto the
person in possession even though the latter does not have a good title to the same. In
Kirk v. Gregory, on A’s death, his sister-in-law removed some jewellery from the
room where his dead body was lying, to another room under a reasonable but
mistaken belief that the same was necessary for its safety. The jewellery was stolen
from the place where it was now kept . In an action by the executors of A, A’s sister-
in-law was held liable for trespass to the jewellery.

Without lawful justification

When the interference is without any lawful justification, an action for trespass
lies. There is justification when the defendant has seized the plaintiff’s goods or cattle
under the exercise of of his right of distress damage feasant. There is also a
justification when the damage to another person’s goods is caused in exercise of the
right of private defence. In Cresswell v. Sirl, the defendant’s son shot the plaintiff’s
dog because the dog was attacking his sheep and pigs. In an action by the plaintiff, the
Court of Appeal held that it was for the defendant to justify the killing and he could
do the same by proving that the dog was either attacking the animals or there was an
imminent apprehension of the attack and also that shooting was the attack and also
that shooting was the reasonable means of preventing the invasion.

Inevitable accident has also been held to defence to an action for trespass to
goods. National Coal Board v. Evans is an authority for the same. There, the
defendants, a country council, had employed certain independent contractors to make
excavations on their land. Beneath the land were laid some electric cables by the
plaintiff’s predecessor in title, of which the defendants had no knowledge.

 Types of torts related to goods:

Trespass to goods is an infringement of the right of possession not of ownership.
There are three types of torts relating to goods

1. Trespass to goods
2. Conversion
3. Detinue

Prof. Salmond: “Trespass to goods consists in committing without lawful justification

any act of direct physical interference with a chattel in the possession of another
person.”

Pollock: “Trespass to goods may be committed by taking possession of them or by

any other act in itself immediately injurious to the goods in respect of the possessor’s
interest as by killing, beating or chasing animals, or defacing a work of art.”

 Two forms – it may assume:

a. Taking the thing away from the plaintiffs possession, when it is termed aspiration
(removal, seizure etc.)

i. this would amount a crime of theft

ii. To robbery if it was also forcible.

b. Different application of force- damage

i. killing or injuring of an animal

ii. Defacing a work of art.

Damage is not always essential. Even the slightest application of force like touching is
wrongful.

 Essentials of trespass to goods:

1. Possession (Servant and master; trustee; administrator)

2. A person in possession, though not the owner can sue.

3. Jus tertii (Title of third person).

 Self defences:
1. Rightful claim
2. Authority of law
3. Consent
4. Negligence of the plaintiff
5. Reception of goods.
 Conversion:

Conversion is the tort committed by a person who deals with chattels not belonging to
him in a manner which is inconsistent with the rights of the lawful owner, by which
the latter is deprived of the use and possession of the chattel.

It is the wrong done by an unauthorized act which deprives another of his property
permanently or for an indefinite time.

A person, who treats goods as if they were his when they are not, is liable to be sued
in conversion.

 Acts of conversion (How conversion commits?)

1. When the property is wrongfully taken.
2. When it is wrongfully parted with.
3. When it is wrongfully sold.
4. When it is wrongfully retained.
5. When there is a denial of the lawful owner’s right.
6. Conversion by denial of rights.
7. Conversion by delivery.

1. When the property is wrongfully taken: Conversion may be committed by

wrongfully a chattel out of the possession of another.

Mills vs. Broker (1919) 1KB

Where a person lopped the branches of fruit trees over hanging his land and
appropriated the fruit it was held that, as the right to pick and appropriate the fruit, he
was guilty of conversion and liable to the owner for its value.

2. Conversion by parting with goods: If a man, who entrusted with the goods of
another, put them into the hands of a third person contrary to orders, it is a conversion.

E.g. you took a book from me, but you gave it to another without returning the book.

Locschman vs. Machin (1818) 2 Stark 311

“The hirer of a piano, who sends it to an auctioneer to be sold, is guilty of conversion,
and so is the auctioneer who refuses to deliver it up unless the expenses incurred be
first paid.”

3. Conversion by sell: Wrongfully sale of goods is conversion. Any person who

however so innocently obtains possession of the goods of a person who has been
fraudulently deprived of them and disposes of them whether for his own benefit or
that of any other person is guilty of conversion.

4. Conversion by keeping: Where a man has possession of another’s chattel and

refuses to deliver it. This is an assertion of a right inconsistent with his general
dominion over it. It amounts to an act of conversion.

Alexader vs. Southey (`1821) 5B & AID 247

“An unqualified refusal is always conclusive evidence of a conversion, but a qualified

reasonable and justified refusal is not”

5. Conversion by destruction: An unauthorized destruction of the plaintiff’s goods

constitutes conversion. It amounts to an adverse exercise of dominion.

Phillpot vs. Kelly (1835) 3 A & E 106

Taking wine from a cask and filling it with water is a conversion of the whole liquor.

6. Conversion by denial of rights

7. Conversion by delivery: If the defendant delivery the goods of the plaintiff to a

third person without the plaintiffs authority, he is guilty of conversion.

8. Conversion by detention: If the detention is adverse to the right of the person

entitled to possession.

E.g. Where bailee refuses to return the chattel to his bail or on demand.

 Differences between Conversion and trespass:

1. As to Definition.
2. As to adverse dominion.
3. As to proof of possession.
4. As to possessor’s liability.
5. Direct injury and deprivation of the goods or their use.
 Differences between Conversion and trespass:

1. Trespass to goods means just interference with the possession not of ownership. A
mere taking or aspiration is actionable trespass but every aspiration is not trespass.
 2. While trespass is an unlawful taking which may be for the sake of removing the
property. Conversion is an unlawful taking for the purpose of exercising adverse
dominion over it.
3. Conversion is wider than trespass because in action for conversion the plaintiff need
not prove actual possession but can sue if he had an immediate right to possess.
Trespass is a wrong to possession.
4. Trespass cannot be committed by an actual possessor. But in actual possessor can be
sued for the conversion by the person who has the immediate right to possess.
5. In trespass the action is the force and direct injury inflicted. But in conversion it is the
deprivation of the goods or their use.
 Self defences:

1. Lien: lawful right to detention.

2. Sale in market overt.
3. Distress or under an execution.
4. Retaking.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.

2.