(A) torts. the unlawful turning or applying the personal goods of another to the use of the taker, or of some other person than the, owner; or the unlawful destroying or altering their nature. 2. When a party takes away or wrongfully assumes the right to goods which belong to another, it will in general be sufficient evidence of a conversion but when the original taking was, lawful, as when the party found the goods, and the detention only is illegal, it is absolutely necessary to male a demand of the goods, and there must be a refusal to deliver them before the conversion will, be complete. The refusal by a servant to deliver the goods entrusted to him by his master, is not evidence of a conversion by his master. 5 Hill, 455. 3. The tortious taking of property is, of itself, a conversion and any intermeddling with it, or any exercise of dominion over it, subversive of the dominion of the owner, or the nature of the bailment, if it be bailed, is, evidence of a conversion. (B) in equity, The considering of one thing as changed into another; for example, land will be considered as converted into money, and treated as such by a court of equity, when the owner has contracted to sell his estate in which case, if he die before the conveyance, his executors and not his heirs will be entitled to the money. On the other hand, money is converted into land in a variety of ways as for example, when a man agrees to buy land, and dies before he has received the conveyance, the money he was to pay for it will be considered as converted into lands, and descend to the heir.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
In equity. The transformation of one species of property into another, as money into land or land into money; or, more particularly, a fiction of law, by which equity assumes that such a transformation has taken place (contrary to the fact) when it is rendered necessary by the equities of the case, as to carry into effect the directions of a will or settlement, and by which the property so dealt with becomes invested with the properties and attributes of that Into which it is supposed to have been converted. Seymour v. Freer, 8 Wall. 214, 19 L. Ed. 306; Uaward v. Peavey, 128 111. 430, 21 N. BL 503, 15 Am. St Rep. 120; Yerkes v. Yerkes, 200 Pa. 419, 50 Atl. 186; Appeal of Clarke, 70 Conn. 195, 39 Atl. 155. At law. An unauthorized assumption and exercise of the right of ownership over goods or personal chattels belonging to another, to the alteration of their condition or the exclusion of the owner’s rights. Baldwin v. Cole, 6 Mod. 212; Trust Co. v. Tod, 170 N. Y. 233, 63 N. E. 285; Boyce v. Brockway, 31 N. Y. 490; University v. Bank, 96 N. C. 280, 3 S. E. 359; Webber v. Davis, 44 Me. 147, 69 Am. Dec. 87; Gilman v. Hill, 36 N. H. 311; Stough v. Stefani, 19 Neb. 468, 27 N. W. 445; Schroeppel v. Corning, 5 Denio (N. Y.) 286; Aschermann v. Brewing Co., 45 Wis. 266. . Constructive conversion. An. implied or virtual conversion, which takes place where a person does such acts in reference to the goods of another as amount in law to the appropriation of the property to himself.