page_title: Trover
section_title: Deaderick v. Oulds, 1887
hierarchical_section_title: Trover / Trover cases in the United States / Deaderick v. Oulds, 1887
caption_attribution_description: The Pigeon River in Newport, Tennessee. The river flows from its source high in the Balsam Mountains of North Carolina down to its confluence with the French Broad River, some 10 miles northwest of Newport at what is now Douglas Lake. Special thanks to the two locals, fishing lackadaisically, who warned me of a hornet's nest I was about to step into.
context_page_description: Trover is a form of lawsuit in common-law countries for recovery of damages for wrongful taking of personal property. Trover belongs to a series of remedies for such wrongful taking, its distinctive feature being recovery only for the value of whatever was taken, not for the recovery of the property itself.
context_section_description: In the 1887 case of Deaderick v. Oulds, the Supreme Court of  Tennessee ruled on a case of trover.  The defendant, Oulds, cut 800 walnut logs, branded them with the letter "D", then proceeded to float them down a river with the intention of recovering them downstream. Sometime later, Oulds found an unmarked log among his other marked logs which had peculiar cracks at one end. He floated the unmarked log down the river, and it washed up on an island owned by the plaintiff, Deaderick, who then claimed the log as his in trover or replevin.  The Tennessee court quoted the English case of Bridges v. Hawkesworth where the plaintiff, being in the shop of the defendant, picked up a parcel containing bank notes.  The defendant, at the request of the finder, took charge of the notes, to hold for the owner.  After three years, no one had come forth to claim them.  The defendant shop owner refused to deliver them to the plaintiff.  The court held the defendant shop owner liable in trover for the notes.
  The Tennessee Supreme Court observed it is essential in cases of trover, that the property must be found; it must at the time when the finder came upon it, to have been in such a situation as to clearly indicate that it was lost. It cannot have been placed there by the original owner who lost it by carelessness or forgetfulness, where it was later found by someone else. In such cases, the owner of the premises where the property is found is treated as a quasi-bailee (i.e. he holds the property for the original owner), and he may maintain trover against the finder. Since the log was not intentionally laid by the (unknown) owner on the land of the plaintiff (Deaderick), and hence he was not a quasi-bailee for the owner, he cannot hold against the superior right of the defendant (Oulds) arising out of his prior possession and earlier finding of the log. Judgment for ownership of the log was to the defendant Oulds.
caption: The case of Deaderick v. Oalds involved an action in trover for recovery of a log floated down a Tennessee River.
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