Aroma Wines & Equipment, Inc v. Columbian Distribution Services, Inc

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that “someone alleging conversion to the defendant's ‘own use’ under MCL 600.2919a(1)(a) must show that the defendant employed the converted property for some purpose personal to the defendant’s interests, even if that purpose is not the object’s ordinarily intended purpose.”
• noting that under section 600.2912a(l), “treble damages and attorney fees are discretionary”
• defining common-law conversion as “any distinct act of dominion wrongfully exerted over another’s personal property in denial of or inconsistent with his rights therein”
• describing a situation when the defendant may have converted wine “for its own use” when it moved the plaintiff’s wine in order to accomplish its own purpose in the space where the wine was previously stored or to acquire leverage against the plaintiff
• “[T]he tort established in MCL 600.2919a(1)(a) is not the same as common-law conversion.”
• “The word ‘converting,’ used in MCL 600.2919a(1)(a), is one word that has acquired a peculiar and appropriate meaning in the law because it is derived from the common-law [conversion] tort . . . and is used in that context here.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).