McPheters v. Page

• Decision Date: 24 March 1891
• Citation: 22 A. 101,83 Me. 234
• Parties: MCPHETERS et al. v. PAGE.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

22 A. 101

83 Me. 234

MCPHETERS et al.

v. PAGE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

March 24, 1891.

(Official.)

Report from supreme judicial court, Penobscot county.

Jasper Hutchings, for plaintiffs.

Barker, Vose & Barker, for defendant.

FOSTER, J. Trover to recover the value of one carcass and two saddles of deer.

It is admitted that the deer were lawfully killed by the plaintiffs, and that they owned the carcass and saddles for which this suit is brought.

The only question involved is whether there has been a conversion of the property by the defendant.

The carcass and saddles were, during open season, put on board the cars to be transported to Boston for sale. Upon their arrival at Bangor they were seized by a constable and two police officers for some supposed violation of law on the part of the plaintiffs in attempting to transport them out of the state. They were taken and carried by these officers to the defendant's meat market in the city, and there left with him. He knew the officers' possession came by seizure. The officers had no precept and procured none either against the property or the plaintiffs. They were not justified in seizing them, or in afterwards doing what they did with them. Nor have we any doubt that the acts of the defendant with reference to the property in question amounted to a conversion. The evidence is uncontradicted that he skinned the carcass and saddles cut them into steaks and roasts, let one of the officers "have paper to do the pieces up to distribute them round to his friends," and sent a few of the orders out with his own team. This he admits. He used none of the meat himself; neither was any of the meat sold.

The defendant sets up no justiflcation by his pleading. It would not avail him were he to do so, with the facts before us. Notwithstanding he may have acted as the agent or servant of the officers in what he did, it furnishes him no legal justification. "It is no defense to an action of trover that the defendant acted as the agent of another. If the principal is a wrongdoer, the agent is a wrong-doer also." Kimball v. Billings, 55 Me. 147, 151.

It is established as elementary law, by well-settled principles and a long line of decisions, that any distinct act of dominion wrongfully exerted over property in denial of the owner's right, or inconsistent with it, amounts to a conversion. It is not necessary to a conversion that it be shown that the wrong-doer has applied it to his own use. If he has exercised a dominion over it in exclusion or in defiance of or inconsistent with the owner's right, that in law is a conversion, whether it be for his own or another person's use. Cooley, Torts, 448; Webber v. Davis, 44 Me. 147,152...