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(3) Equity (Equity & personal property (features (Equitable interests…

- - - - What does cause of action require?
        
        Direct interference with a chattel: e.g. removing goods or damaging them
        
        Requires some voluntary act
        
        Actionable per se but can recover for damage to goods and for consequential losses
        
        Possibility that goods in D’s possession/control must be returned to claimant: Torts (Interference with Goods Act) 1977, s 3
        
        Claimant must have possession (or right to immediate possession)
      - Penfolds Wines Pty Ltd v Elliott (1946) 74 CLR 204, Latham CJ at 214–15
        
        ‘A mere taking or asportation of a chattel may be a trespass without the infliction of any material damage. The handling of a chattel without authority is a trespass … Unauthorized user of goods is a trespass … The normal use of a bottle is as a container, and the use of it for this purpose is a trespass if, as in this case, it is not authorized by a person in possession or entitled to immediate possession.’
        
        Unauthorised interaction of a thing that flals short of deprivation. (trespass)
        
        If u deprive = conversion. Excluding possessor from it, treating it like its ur own thing
    - - Lancashire and Yorkshire Rail Co, and others v MacNicoll [1918-19] All ER Rep 537, Atkin J at 541
        
        ‘It appears to me plain that dealing with goods in a manner inconsistent with the right of the true owner amounts to a conversion, providing it is also established that there is an intention on the part of the defendant in so doing to deny the owner's right or to assert a right which is inconsistent with the owner's right: But that intention is conclusively proved if the defendant has taken the goods as his own or used the goods as his own.’
      - What does cause of action require?
        
        Some voluntary act inconsistent with ownership of another
        
        Disposing of goods (e.g. contract of sale), damaging goods (but not minor damage), destroying goods or altering their nature, detaining goods
        
        But mere removal (asportation) of goods not enough
        
        Claimant must have possession (or right to immediate possession)
        
        Chattels and documentary intangibles can be converted but not pure intangibles: OBG Ltd v Allan [2007] UKHL 21, [2008] 1 AC 1
        If there is no paper representation, no contractual claim, ur property is not covered = HL authority.
      - :star:
        White v Withers LLP [2009] EWCA Civ 1122
        
        Wife involved in divorce proceedings removes husband’s documents and passes them to lawyers
        
        Aims to prevent husband concealing his wealth
        
        Husband sues wife and wife’s lawyers
        
        Various claims including trespass and conversion
        
        Attempt made by defendants to strike out claim
        
        QBD: action struck out, CA: husband’s appeal allowed
        Trespass to goods: paras 44–50
        Conversion: paras 51–53
      - Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977
        
        Section 1: ‘In this Act “wrongful interference”, or “wrongful interference with goods”, means (a) conversion of goods (also called trover), (b) trespass to goods, (c) negligence so far as it results in damage to goods or to an interest in goods, (d) subject to section 2, any other tort so far as it results in damage to goods or to an interest in goods … ’
        
        Section 14: ‘“goods” includes all chattels personal other than things in action and money’
        
        Section 3 ‘(1) In proceedings for wrongful interference against a person who is in possession or in control of the goods relief may be given in accordance with this section, so far as appropriate.
        (2) The relief is (a) an order for delivery of the goods, and for payment of any consequential damages, or (b) an order for delivery of the goods, but giving the defendant the alternative of paying damages by reference to the value of the goods, together in either alternative with payment of any consequential damages, or (c) damages.’
        
        Ct can order a remedy, but in most cases its just the mkt value of the item. Ct has discretion: like fam heirloom, can request for it to be resplaced.
        
        Section 8
        ‘(1) The defendant in an action for wrongful interference shall be entitled to show, in accordance with rules of court, that a third party has a better right than the plaintiff as respects all or any part of the interest claimed by the plaintiff, or in right of which he sues, and any rule of law (sometimes called jus tertii) to the contrary is abolished.’
        But third party would have to be identified: a specific individual / entitiTY
        See Costello v Chief Constable of Derbyshire, para 15
    - - C must have property rights to goods if u r going to sue in negligence
        
        The Aliakmon [1986] AC 785, Lord Brandon at 809:‘ … there is a long line of authority for a principle of law that, in order to enable a person to claim in negligence for loss caused to him by reason of loss of or damage to property, he must have had either the legal ownership of or a possessory title to the property concerned at the time when the loss or damage occurred, and it is not enough for him to have only had contractual rights in relation to such property which have been adversely affected by the loss of or damage to it.’
      - Claimant in The Aliakmon would now have claim against carrier under contract of carriage
        
        Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1992 provides a specific statutory exception to privity
        
        See Lord Goff in White v Jones [1995] 2 AC 207, 264–65
        
        Shell UK Ltd v Total UK Ltd [2011] QB 86
        Property held on trust by legal owner for beneficiary
        CA: beneficial owner of property, not in possession, entitled to recover for economic loss caused by damage to property as long as it can join legal owner in proceedings (i.e. owed a duty of care by defendant)
        
        Generally need legal interest to sue in negligence. If u r beneficial owner, u have possession. U join the full owner, u can still sue under neg.