J, the owner of the goods, sued in detinue the defendant W to whom they had been delivered at the request of a third party, P, who had failed to pay for them. W refused to deliver up the goods.
Held: The claim was not maintainable. Lord Evershed MR said: ‘I take [the judgment below] to mean that the contractual right which the plaintiff had vis-a-vis Patterson to go and collect these goods from Patterson’s agent was a right of a sufficient character to enable the plaintiff to bring an action in detinue against the agent of the owner of the property in these goods. But, with all respect to the County Court Judge, I am unable to accept that as a good proposition of law. Certain classes of persons, as for example bailees have, no doubt, a special right to sustain actions in trover and detinue but the general rule is, I think, correctly stated in the text of Halsbury’s Laws of England 2nd Ed Vol 33 at p62, para 98: ‘in order to maintain an action of trover or detinue, a person must have the right of possession and a right of property in the goods at the time of the conversion or detention; and he cannot sue if he has parted with the property in the goods at the time of the alleged conversion, or if at the time of the alleged conversion his title to the goods has been divested by a disposition which is valid under the Factors Act 1989’.
Judges:
Lord Evershed MR
Citations:
[1955] 1 WLR 71
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Iran v The Barakat Galleries Ltd QBD 29-Mar-2007
The claimant government sought the return to it of historical artefacts in the possession of the defendants. The defendant said the claimant could not establish title and that if it could the title under which the claim was made was punitive and not . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Torts – Other
Updated: 10 May 2022; Ref: scu.258519