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There seem to be two Wikipedia articles on conversion | 661 comments | Create New Account
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There seem to be two Wikipedia articles on conversion
Authored by: PJ on Tuesday, April 02 2013 @ 09:47 AM EDT
Well, you need to be more precise in your language to get it right. Conversion and criminal conversion are two different things. When you mean criminal conversion, you can't leave off the "criminal" part, because the law is precise, so it's still not true to say that conversion can be a crime. The difference is this:
A person who knowingly or intentionally exerts unauthorized control over property of another person commits criminal conversion. The element of knowledge is found when the accused person engages in the conduct and he/she is aware of a high probability that he/she is doing so. An essential element of criminal conversion is that “the property must be owned by another and the conversion thereof must be without the consent and against the will of the party, to whom the property belongs, coupled with the fraudulent intent to deprive the owner of the property[i].”

Unlike criminal conversion, the mens rea is not an element and good faith is not a defense in the case of tortious conversion. Conversion, as a tort, consists “either in the appropriation of the personal property of another to the party’s own use and benefit, or in its destruction, or in exercising dominion over it, in exclusion and defiance of the rights of the owner or lawful possessor, or in withholding it from his possession, under a claim and title inconsistent with the owner’s[ii].”

And that distinguishes it from theft, by the way, the degree of knowledge and intent.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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