A husband wrongfully used 18 beaver skins belonging to his wife together with four skins of his own, to have a fur coat made up which he then gave to his mistress. The wife was held entitled to recover the coat. The mistress knew nothing of the true ownership of the skins, but her innocence was held to be immaterial. She was a gratuitous donee and could stand in no better position than the husband. The coat was a new asset manufactured from the skins and not merely the product of intermingling them. The problem could not be solved by a sale of the coat in order to reduce the disputed property to a divisible fund, since (as we shall see) the realisation of an asset does not affect its ownership. It would hardly have been appropriate to require the two ladies to share the coat between them. Accordingly it was an all or nothing case in which the ownership of the coat must be assigned to one or other of the parties. The determinative factor was that the mixing was the act of the wrongdoer through whom the mistress acquired the coat otherwise than for value.
Citations:
(1916) 28 DLR 561
Cited by:
Cited – Foskett v McKeown and Others HL 18-May-2000
A property developer using monies which he held on trust to carry out a development instead had mixed those monies with his own in his bank account, and subsequently used those mixed monies to pay premiums on a life assurance policy on his own life, . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Equity, Commonwealth
Updated: 30 April 2022; Ref: scu.220694
