McKeesport Sawmill Co. v. Pennsylvania Co.

ARCHBALD, District Judge.*

This is an action of trover, but it is difficult to see how the defendants can be charged with having converted the coal barge of the plaintiffs simply because they found it necessary to destroy it in order to dislodge it from the position where it lay, bearing upon and endangering the false work of their bridge. It is true that the exercise of dominion over personal property in disparagement of the owner’s right is, as a rule, a conversion, and its destruction would, therefore, seem to be eminently such, because it is the end of any further beneficial use or…