A New‐Found Haltday: the Eighteenth Report of the Law Reform Committee (Conversion and Detinue)
| Date | 01 March 1972 |
| Author | D. J. Bentley |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1972.tb01326.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1972 |
REPORTS
OF
COMMITTEES
A
NEW-FOUND
HALIDAY
:
THE
EIGHTEENTH
REPORT
OF
THE
LAW
REFORM
COMMITTEE
(CONVERSION
AND
DETINUE)
THIS report can conveniently be dealt with under two broad
headings. First, there is the main recommendation, that
“
in
general an intentional act, without lawful justification, involving
interference with a chattel should be actionable by way of a new
tort which will supersede conversion, detinue and trespass to chat-
tels.,’ The new tort, it is .suggested, could be called
“
wrongful
interference with movables.”
I
shall try to show that there is a
case for approaching this recommendation, at least as
it
stands in
the report, very warily. The Committee also makes a number
of
subsidiary but important recommendations, notably with regard
to the
jus
tertii,
and these
I
shall deal with on their own at rather
less length. There is, though, a third aspect of the report, a theme
which will reappear throughout this note and has to do with the
whoLe approach and style of the report. To put
it
briefly and
a
bit unfairly, at many points neither the present law nor the proposed
changes are clearly enough explained for the reader to know what
is going on.
Nor
is the job done by these remedies at the present
day made clear. Are they law for the rich man
or
the poor
?
For
commerce
or
the private individual
?
How many actions a year are
brought, and in which courts?
Do
the rules, complicated though
they are, cause manifest hardship
or
inconvenience
?
And finally-
perhaps we have been spoilt by the Law Commission’s example-
there is no draft Bill tacked on the end, and
I
hope to show why,
taken with the rest of these general criticisms, this makes
it
hard
to welcome the report whole-heartedly.
My real criticism of the proposals for a new tort is that the
Committee has not been bold enough. Fearful of losing
a
place
in the legislative queue, it rejects the possibility of replacing the
common law by an
‘‘
entirely new and self-contained statutory code
which would create the new tort and set out all its characteristics
and incidents.” Instead
it
is proposed to abolish the common law
relating to detinue and trespass to goods, but to retain the existing
law relating to conversion (subject, of course, to the other changes
proposed
m
the report).
It
is understandable that after sitting for four years on this
particular egg the Committee would now like to see its progeny
take wing, but if the best is often the enemy
of
the good, compromise
also deserves careful scrutiny. The justification produced for the
1
Cmnd.
4774,
1971.
171
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