Star Fruit Co. v. Eagle Lake Growers

• Decision Date: 10 February 1948
• Citation: 160 Fla. 130,33 So.2d 858
• Parties: STAR FRUIT CO. v. EAGLE LAKE GROWERS, Inc.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

33 So.2d 858

160 Fla. 130

STAR FRUIT CO. v. EAGLE LAKE GROWERS, Inc.

Florida Supreme Court

February 10, 1948

Appeal from Circuit Court, Polk County; Don Register Judge.

Paul Ritter, of Winter Haven, Gunter Stephenson, of Bartow, and John Wigginton, and T. T. Turnbull, both of Tallahassee, for appellant.

Bentley & Shafer, of Lakeland, for appellee.

BARNS, Justice.

Appellee sued appellant for the alleged conversion of 721 boxes of tangerines. The lower court entered a judgment against appellant in the amount of $2,163.75, and this appeal is from that judgment.

On Wednesady December 19, 1944, appellee delivered 721 field boxes of tangerines to appellant's packing house under an agreement whereby appellant was to grade, pack, ship and sell for account of appellee. On Sunday following, appellee knowing that there was an embargo on all citrus shipments and having learned that appellant had not packed or shipped the fruit, sent its trucks to pick up the fruit and, upon arrival at the packing house, its driver was informed by two men that the tangerines had been carried off and dumped.

There is evidence to support the conclusion that the appellee-owner was not notified by appellant that it could not handle the fruit or that it would be dumped. Appellant's excuse for not packing the tangerines was that they were not fit to ship that they were badly plugged from being pulled from the trees instead of being clipped. On December 17th and 18th preceding delivery of the 721 boxes on the 19th, the appellant sold 686 boxes of tangerines from the same crop of which the 721 boxes were a part for a net sum of $2,606.65.

Appellant claims that it did not recover anything from the tangerines; that by turning them over to a dairyman it merely saved the cost of hauling them. The fruit was delivered to the dairyman, who hauled it away for use as cow feed. This was the manner in which the appellant disposed of its culls.

It was the duty of the appellant, having received the fruit for packing and sale for the account of the plaintiff-appellee, when it found that it could not do so, to notify the plaintiff-appellee, in order that it might use its own judgment as to how it might best dispose of its property.

'Essential element of a conversion is a wrongful deprivation of property to the owner.' Wilson Cypress Co. et al. v. Logan, 120 Fla. 124, 162 So. 489.

'The gist of a conversion has been declared to be not the acquisition of the property of the wrongdoer, but the wrongful deprivation of a person of property to the possession of which he is entitled. A conversion consists of an act in derogation of the plaintiff's possessory rights, and any wrongful exercise or assumption of authority over another's goods, depriving him of the possession, permanently or for an indefinite time, is a conversion.' 53 Am.Jur., p. 822.

The wrongful destruction or disposal of personal property by a bailee, contrary to the terms, terminates the trust and works a disseisin of the true owner, and action for conversion will lie.

In a general sense the law of conversion is as follows: 'Let us now note a few judicial utterances which serve to make clear the exact nature of that disseisin of chattels which is called conversion. 'What.' says Lord Holt, 'is a conversion, but an assuming upon one's self the property and right of disposing of another's goods?' The technical meaning of conversion, says Martin, B., in Burroughs v. Bayne (1860), is the 'detaining goods so as to deprive the person entitled to the possession of them of his dominion over them.' Such expressions as 'Interference with the dominion of the true owner,' 'exercise of dominion to the exclusion and in defiance of the plaintiff's right,' and 'unauthorized assumption of the powers of a true owner,' are familiar forms in which the gist of this wrong is described. Not a bad definition of conversion is that approved by Bramwell, B., in Hiort v. Bott (1874), viz., 'an unauthorized act which deprives another of his property permanently or for an indefinite time.' If we should say 'deprives another of the dominion of his property permanently or for an indefinite time,' this definition would perhaps be all that could be desired. However the language be framed it is obvious that the gist of conversion is found in the disseisin of the owner or in an interference with legal rights which are incident to ownership, such as the right to have possession.' Street's 'Foundations of Legal Liability'---- Vol. I, p. 233, 234.

'The expression, 'with intent to deprive the true owner,' or 'with intent to convert,' is sometimes incorporated into definitions of conversion, as if the element of intent were a universal qualification of the wrong. But really it is only material when the act complained of does not speak for itself.' Ib., p. 236.

'There must be some positive overt act of adverse...