 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Macomber v. Travelers Property and Casualty Corp.9/3/2002
ng is that the property rights of the plaintiff have been dealt with in a manner adverse to him, inconsistent with his right of dominion and to his harm.'' (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Aetna Life & Casualty Co. v. Union Trust Co., 230 Conn. 779, 790-91, 646 A.2d 799 (1994); see also D. Wright & J. Fitzgerald, Connecticut Law of Torts (2d Ed. 1968) ยง 25, p. 28 ('' n action of conversion is a suit for damages by the owner of a chattel, or by one entitled to the immediate possession of the chattel, against one who has wrongfully appropriated the chattel or has tampered with the chattel in derogation of the rights of the rightful owner or possessor''). Thus, for the plaintiffs' conversion claim to survive a motion to strike, the plaintiffs must present a theory of how either the rebates, or the money that the defendants allegedly have retained through their short-changing scheme, are the plaintiffs' property.
First, viewing the rebating allegations in a light most favorable to the plaintiffs, they asserted that: (1) the plaintiffs and Travelers Casualty agreed on a settlement; (2) the plaintiffs agreed to have Travelers Casualty invest a sum certain of that settlement in an annuity; (3) this sum certain was the cost of the annuity to Travelers Casualty, and was also the present value of the annuity; (4) after Travelers Casualty received a portion of the commission that the broker had received from the sale of that annuity, the net cost of the annuity to Travelers Casualty was less than what it had agreed to pay for the annuity; and (5) as a result, Travelers Casualty, in effect, was still in possession of a portion of that sum certain that it had agreed to invest for the plaintiffs. Despite these allegations, the plaintiffs' conversion claim must fail because they cannot point to specific, identifiable money to which they had a right, just as they must in order to support a conversion claim regarding any other type of chattel.
Generally, '' plaintiff must establish legal ownership or right to possession in the particular thing, the specifically identifiable moneys, that the defendant is alleged to have converted.'' Columbia Marine Services, Inc. v. Reffet Ltd., 861 F.2d 18, 23 (2d Cir. 1988); see also National Union Fire Ins. Co. v. Wilkins-Lowe & Co., 29 F.3d 337, 340 (7th Cir. 1994) ('' n action for conversion of funds may not be maintained to satisfy a mere obligation to pay money. . . . It must be shown that the money claimed, or its equivalent, at all times belonged to the plaintiff and that the defendant converted it to his own use.'' [Emphasis in original; internal quotation marks omitted.]); Belford Trucking Co. v. Zagar, 243 So. 2d 646, 648 (Fla. App. 1970) (''The requirement that the money be identified as a specific chattel does not permit as a subject of conversion an indebtedness which may be discharged by the payment of money generally. . . . A mere obligation to pay money may not be enforced by a conversion action . . . and an action in tort is inappropriate where the basis of the suit is a contract, either express or implied.'' [Citations omitted.]). Given that the plaintiffs did not allege that they owned or were ever in possession of the money that, they contended, is currently in the defendants' possession, their conversion claim, as to the rebating scheme, must be stricken.
Following this same logic, the plaintiffs' conversion claim as to the defendants' short-changing scheme must be stricken. Here, the plaintiffs have alleged that when Travelers Casualty agreed to fund an annuity for Huaman, Travelers Casualty represented to her that it would spend $6667 on the annuity. The plaintiffs further alleged that Travelers Casualty spent $6569.51 on that ann
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Connecticut Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|