Property in Chattels Personal

Abstract

This chapter considers the history of the law governing movable chattels, which was different from the law of real property and of chattels real (such as leases of land). The basic principles changed little over time. The chapter explores the ways in which property in movables could originate, the modes of transfer, the ways in which property could cease, and how far future interests could be created in chattels. The remainder of the chapter deals with the remedies to protect chattels, beginning with detinue and its defects. Actions on the case lay from the fourteenth century for damaging goods. The action on the case called trover and conversion, which rested on a fictitious loss and finding, came from the sixteenth century to be the usual action for misappropriating goods. Though in form an action in tort, it gradually became a proprietary action.