Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/831

 IN RE FEANKLIK M. KETCHUM. 823 �it is wholly immaterial whether the unauthorized sale, or pledge, or other act of conversion, was knowingly wrongful, or, in fact, wholly innocent, done under a mistake as to the title or the right of the party making the sale or pledge. {Same cases.) That ignorance of the fact that the property belongs to another, and the want of intent to commit a tres- pass upon it, constitutes no defence to an action of trover, m in conformity with the rule of the common law that no man can (with certain exceptions not here needful to notice) be deprived of his property without his' own consent, and that his permitting another to bave the possession of his chattels does not carry with it such an indicium of title as authorizea or justifies any other party, dealing with the party bo in pos- session, to rely upon that possession as evidence of title. Ballard v, Burgett, 40 N. Y. 814, �The owner may estop himself by declarations, real or written, creating or importing an apparent title on which parties dealing with the person may rely. This, however, is only where, upon the principles of estoppel in pais, the pre- vention of possible or intended frauds makes it neoessary in favor of persons parting with value, or altering their condition for the worse by reason of the reliance on the declarations that the title shall be held io pass. Moore v. Metropolitan Bank, 55 N. Y. 41. �Clearly, then, with this exception of a case of estoppel, ail the world deals with chattels, wherever found, at the peril of liability for trover, if in fact they belong to another, or the party dealing with them bas in fact no right to them. If one is misled by another's possession and apparent ownership of them it is his misfortune, for which the owner is not respon- sible, and which constitutes no legal defence to a ciaim for their conversion. �If, therefore, a firm, acting through an agent or one of the partners, while engaged in the regular course of the business of the firm, innoeently or wrongfully appropriates chattels, other than money, or what bas the quality of money, and sells it, and receives and uses in its business the proceeds, or, without a sale, uses it in the firm' s business, the firm is liable ��� �