Opinion ID: 1140705
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Bailment/Conversion

Text: The plaintiffs state in their brief that several of their theories of recovery are based on the existence of a bailment between the students, on the one hand, and M.G. and J.Si., on the other, by which the students delivered to M.G. and J.Si. the photographs with specific instructions that M.G. and J.Si., as the bailees, delete the photographs immediately after receiving them. This Court has stated: `A bailment is defined as the delivery of personal property by one person to another for a specific purpose, with a contract, express or implied, that the trust shall be faithfully executed, and the property returned or duly accounted for when the special purpose is accomplished, or kept until the bailor reclaims it. In order for a bailment to exist the bailee must have voluntarily assumed the custody and possession of the property for another.' Ziva Jewelry, Inc. v. Car Wash Headquarters, Inc., 897 So.2d 1011, 1014 (Ala.2004) (quoting S/M Indus., Inc. v. Hapag-Lloyd A.G., 586 So.2d 876, 881-82 (Ala.1991)). Further, this Court has stated: In order to constitute a bailment, there must be a change of possession, actual or constructive, and the bailee must have voluntarily assumed the custody and possession of the property for another. Lewis v. Ebersole, 244 Ala. 200, 12 So.2d 543 (1943). Change of possession necessarily requires a change of actual or constructive control over the item of property, and there must be an intention on the part of the bailee to exercise that control. 8 Am.Jur.2d Bailments § 66 (1980). Farmer v. Machine Craft, Inc., 406 So.2d 981, 982-83 (Ala.Civ.App.1981). Citing Martin v. Luckie & Forney, Inc., 549 So.2d 18, 19 (Ala.1989), the plaintiffs contend that an action based on the bailment of personal property can be brought against one who converts, injures, or loses the subject matter of the bailment. The plaintiffs argue in their brief that the students had no intentions that the photographs would become the property of anyone other than M.G. and J.Si., and that J.Si. is liable for conversion of the photographs because, they argue, he wrongfully delivered those photographs to unauthorized third persons. This Court has stated: Conversion consists of (1) an act or omission by the defendant (2) with the intent to assert control over property (3) that belongs to the plaintiff (4) resulting in substantial interference to the plaintiff's possessory rights. In other words, a conversion is said to consist `either in the appropriation of the thing to the party's own use and beneficial enjoyment, or its destruction, or in exercising of dominion over it, in exclusion or defiance of the plaintiff's right, or in withholding the possession from the plaintiff, under a claim of title inconsistent with his own.' But `[t]he bare possession of property without some wrongful act in the acquisition of possession, or its detention, and without illegal assumption of ownership or illegal user or misuser, is not conversion.' Martin, 549 So.2d at 19 (citations omitted). In S/M Industries, Inc., 586 So.2d at 883, this Court adopted the trial court's order, which stated: `A conversion may occur where there is a wrongful delivery to a third party of personal property by a bailee resulting in its loss to the owner of the property. A delivery to an unauthorized person is as much a conversion as would be the sale of property, or an appropriation of it to the bailee's own use. In such a case neither a sincere or apparently well-founded belief that the delivery to an unauthorized person was right nor the exercise of any degree of care constitutes a defense even to a gratuitous bailee.' The existence of a bailment is dependent upon a contract between the bailor and the bailee. Ziva Jewelry, supra . We note the following: Under Alabama law, one who is unmarried and has not reached the age of 19 years is deemed to be a minor, i.e., subject to the disabilities of nonage (although such disabilities may, in certain circumstances, be removed by a judgment of a juvenile court). See § 26-1-1, § 26-13-1 et seq., § 30-4-15, and § 30-4-16, Ala.Code 1975. Among the disabilities of nonage is the incapacity to make a binding contract: `It is a well-established general rule at common-law, and recognized in this state, that a minor is not liable on any contract he makes and that he may disaffirm the same.' Children's Hosp. of Birmingham, Inc. v. Kelley, 537 So.2d 917, 917 (Ala.Civ.App.1987), aff'd in pertinent part, rev'd on other grounds, Ex parte Odem, 537 So.2d 919 (Ala.1988). Williams v. Baptist Health Sys., Inc., 857 So.2d 149, 151 (Ala.Civ.App.2003). The students and J.Si. were minors at the time of this incident; therefore, they lacked the capacity to enter into a contract. Because there was no contract, there was necessarily no bailment of the photographs. However, even assuming that a bailment existed between J.Si. and the students, the evidence viewed in a light most favorable to the plaintiffs indicates only that J.Si. promised to delete the photographs and possessed the photographs on the computer located at his house. The plaintiffs have presented no evidence indicating that J.Si. wrongfully conveyed the photographs to other persons. In fact, it was M.G. who took full responsibility in his letter of apology to the students for the wide dissemination of the photographs. The plaintiffs also contend that D.Sk. wrongfully interfered with the students' possessory rights in the photographs. We disagree. D.Sk. merely possessed the computer disk containing the photographs after she located the disk in her son's bedroom and endeavored to discover the contents of the disk by accessing its contents at the fire station, and then delivered the photographs to Bell as he requested. The plaintiffs presented no evidence indicating that D.Sk. engaged in any wrongful conduct in gaining possession of the photographs or any unlawful exercise of dominion or control over the photographs. We further note that no bailment relationship existed between the students and D.Sk. because D.Sk. did not voluntarily assume the custody or possession of the photographs from the students. Farmer, supra . Again, D.Sk. simply took the disk containing the photographs from her son's room, accessed the contents of the disk at the fire station, and then delivered the disk to Bell as he had requested. Additionally, nothing in the record indicates that J.Si. or D.Sk. significantly interfered with the student's possessory rights in the photographs or that the photographs were ever lost. In Poff v. Hayes, 763 So.2d 234 (Ala.2000), the defendant removed original documents from the office of the plaintiff for the purpose of photocopying those documents and then returned those documents to their place once they had been copied. This Court held that such a dispossession of the documents by the defendant did not seriously interfere with the possessory interests of the plaintiff so as to support a conversion claim. Here, the students were at all times in possession of the original photographs until they chose to delete the photographs from M.D.'s computer. Therefore, there was no serious interference with their possessory interests in the photographs and the photographs could not be said to have been lost for purposes of a breach-of-bailment claim. Accordingly, the summary judgment entered in favor of J.Si. and D.Sk. on the plaintiffs' bailment and conversion claims is affirmed.