Court Opinion

ID: 9868811
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 18:58:42.452947+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:53.081779
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Wallace has filed an elaborate motion for rehearing presenting nine assignments of error. The gist of these assignments is that we erred in treating the wrongful sequestration as a conversion and in applying the measure of damages applicable thereto. It is urged that the proper measure of damages was the value of the use of the property, and the proper judgment would be in favor of Wallace for the balance due on his note, less a proper credit covering the value of the use of the property, and foreclosure of his lien.
Since we did not discuss this point in our original opinion, we think it proper to do so now.
One of the cases relied upon is Laseter v. Hyde (Tex. Civ. App.) 65 S.W.(2d) 388, 389. The point decided there has no application here. The appeal there involved the liability of sureties upon a replevy bond executed .by the defendant who owned the property subject to plaintiff’s mortgage lien. The property had been in fact delivered to plaintiff prior to the foreclosure, and the gist of the decision in this regard is thus stated: “Since the property had been turned over to the plaintiff prior to the trial, the obligation of the sureties had been discharged, except as to their liability for damages.”
The liability of one who obtains possession of property under court process wrongfully procured is not the same as that of sureties upon a replevy bond executed by the owner of the property.
That such wrongful act constitutes a conversion is well established.
“Any distinct act or dominion wrongfully exerted over one’s property in denial of his right, or inconsistent with it, is a conversion.” Cooley on Torts (2 Ed.) p. 524, cited with approval in Crawford v. Thomason, 53 Tex. Civ. App. 561, 117 S. W. 181 (error refused), a wrongful sequestration case, as noted below.
“One who intentionally dispossesses another of a chattel without his consent or other privilege to do so is liable to the other either -as a treaspasser or as a converter for the value of the chattel except as stated in Secs. 247 and 249.” Am. Law Inst. Restatement of Torts, vol. 1, § 222.
“Section 249 deals with circumstances which bar a recovery by the possessor,” and has no application here.
The pertinent portions of section 247 read:
“One who has become liable for the conversion of a chattel can mitigate the damages for which he is liable by an offer to return it, if
“(a) the chattel was converted in good faith and without knowledge or reasonable belief that the actor was not entitled to so deal with the chattel.”
We are not here concerned with those cases possessing the elements of “good faith and without knowledge or reasonable belief that the actor was not entitled to so deal with the chattel.”' The actor here wrongfully used the judicial process to wrest possession from the owner. This wrongful use consisted in procuring issu-*807anee of the process upon an affidavit falsely asserting the existence of the conditions which would render such issuance lawful. There is no distinction in reason, and none in law, between obtaining possession through wrongfully procured legal process, and obtaining it wrongfully by force, fraud, or otherwise. The effect is the same, and each is equally unlawful. There is therefore no valid basis for a difference in legal remedy.
The conversion is complete when the owner is wrongfully dispossessed; and it is well settled that the owner has a choice of remedies. He may treat the wrongful taking as a conversion and recover the value of the property at the date of its taking; or he may treat the taking as a trespass and recover the specific property and damages for its use and injury. Of course, his acceptance of its return would bar recovery of its value. See section 249 of the Restatement of Torts. These principles are elementary.
In Weaver v. Ashcroft, 50 Tex. 427, 444, it was said: -“Whether the sheriff wrongfully took possession of the entire stock of goods, was, we think, mainly a question of fact. If he did, and the conversion was complete, the fact that he afterwards tendered back the goods, or a part thereof, does not relieve him from full responsibility.”
The court (Judge Gould writing) quoted with approval from Hanmer v. Wilsey, 17 Wend. (N. Y.) 91: “But, independent of the fact that the plaintiff had commenced legal proceedings, there was no ground for mitigating damages. The horse had been wrongfully taken, and the plaintiff had a right to insist on being paid the value. The actual return of the horse to the plaintiff’s stable without his assent was a matter of no legal consequence. * * * It was a matter of no moment to the plaihtiff what became of the horse after the original illegal taking. Replacing the animal in the plaintiff’s stable without his assent was a nugatory act; it could no more operate to prejudice the plaintiff than any other disposition which the defendant might have made of the property.”
The above case of Crawford v. Thoma-son was one of wrongful sequestration, under which a house and stock of goods therein had been moved some 30 feet by the sheriff. The court say: “While the sheriff distinctly and repeatedly disclaimed any purpose to take charge of appellees’ goods situated in the house, and expressly stated that his only purpose was to move the house from the strip of land claimed by appellants in the suit, we are yet constrained to hold that his acts in pulling apart the two sections of the house and moving it with all its contents 30 feet back from its former location, thereby necessarily interrupting appellees’ business, was the exercise of dominion over the property inconsistent with appellees’ title and substantially an ouster of plaintiffs from the possession thereof.”
The court’s holding is thus epitomized in the syllabus: “When a wrong complained of amounts to a conversion, the injured party has the right to so treat it and to sue for the value of the property so taken, and also to refuse to accept the property when the wrongdoer offers to return it.”
The case of Gilroy v. Rowley (Tex. Civ. App.) 210 S. W. 623, 624, is virtually on all fours with the case at bar. There the plaintiff had wrongfully sequestered real estate held under lease by defendant. The question was the right of defendant to recover, in reconvention, the value of growing crops. The trial court refused to submit to the jury the question: “Were defendants given an opportunity to harvest all crops that they seeded and cultivated during the term of the lease in evidence?”
In disposing of this issue, the court say: “It having been determined that the writ of sequestration was wrongfully issued and served, the taking of the property amounted to a conversion, and the defendants had the right to refuse the offer.”
Neither the fact that Wallace had a valid lien upon the property, nor that Burson had previously purchased it from Wallace, in any way affected his liability as a converter, or the measure of relief to which Burson was entitled. Sabine Motor Co. v. English Auto Co. (Tex. Com. App.) 291 S. W. 1088.
The motion is overruled.
Overruled.