A man rents a storage unit to temporarily hold antique furniture he inherited. A delivery company mistakenly delivers one of the antique chairs from the storage unit to a nearby furniture store. At the store, an employee sees the chair and, believing it to be store property, places it on the sales floor and later sells it to a customer. The man demands compensation from the store for the chair. Which of the following legal doctrines most accurately supports the man’s right to recover the value of the chair from the store?
The correct answer is based on the principles of conversion, which involves the wrongful exercise of dominion over another's personal property in a way that interferes with the owner's rights. Conversion applies because the act of selling the chair constitutes interference with the man’s ownership, regardless of whether the store acted innocently. Trespass to chattels, in contrast, applies when there is intermeddling or temporary interference with personal property, but the property is not permanently deprived or taken. The fact that the chair was sold to a customer aligns more closely with conversion, as the chair cannot easily be returned to its rightful owner in this situation.
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