## Facts

- Fouldes boarded Willoughby’s steam-ferry with two horses and paid the customary fare for their carriage.
- After complaints about Fouldes’s conduct onboard, Willoughby (or his servants) refused to carry the horses across and ordered that they be taken ashore.
- When Fouldes refused, Willoughby’s side removed the horses from the ferry and put them on shore; they were taken to an inn kept by Willoughby’s brother.
- Fouldes stayed on the ferry and crossed without the horses.
- The next day Fouldes demanded the horses; they were not delivered, and he was later told he could retrieve them if he paid for their keep, otherwise they would be sold to cover expenses.
- The horses were eventually sold.
- Fouldes sued Willoughby in trover, alleging conversion of the horses.

## Issues

1. Whether an unauthorized removal and landing of another’s chattel, without an intent to assert ownership or dominion inconsistent with the owner’s rights, constitutes conversion.
2. Whether the trial court misdirected the jury by treating the act of removing and landing the horses as conversion without requiring consideration of Willoughby’s intent.

## Decision

- The Court of Exchequer set aside the plaintiff’s verdict on the conversion claim.
- A mere wrongful asportation (removal) of a chattel, without intent to exercise dominion inconsistent with the owner’s rights, is not conversion.
- The trial judge’s charge was erroneous because it failed to require the jury to assess Willoughby’s intention in removing the horses.
- The court indicated the conduct could support an action in trespass to chattels, even if it did not amount to conversion.

## Legal Principles

- Conversion requires an intentional exercise of dominion or control over a chattel that is inconsistent with the true owner’s right of possession.
- Mere interference with possession or a simple removal of goods, without a claim of ownership or other dominion inconsistent with the owner’s rights, is generally trespass, not conversion.
- A conversion analysis turns on the defendant’s act and intent at the time of the alleged interference; not every wrongful displacement of goods qualifies as conversion.

## Conclusion

The court held that wrongfully taking horses off a ferry and landing them ashore, without an intent to assert dominion inconsistent with the owner’s rights, did not establish conversion, and the jury instruction treating the removal as conversion was misdirection.


Fouldes v. Willoughby, 151 Eng. Rep. 1153 (Exch. 1841)