Replevin Claims
Litigation is often about money. It could be that the defendant stole money or failed to pay money as promised. Or the defendant did some bad thing and the plaintiff wants her to pay money to compensate for it. But sometimes litigation is about a specific thing. Maybe the defendant stole an object that the plaintiff wants back; maybe the plaintiff loaned the defendant an object but they never returned it. In cases like these, a plaintiff may seek replevin.
Why should you read this post about replevin?
Someone stole a drawing you made and you want the drawing itself back, not just its market value.
You don’t know what the word “replevin” means, and this web page came up.
You’ve had a lot to drink and you’re hoping some litigation information will help sober you up from the sheer force of its seriousness.
Image credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft#/media/File:Fortunes_of_a_Street_Waif.jpg
The elements of a claim
The law applicable to a replevin is based on state law, so the requirements may vary in each state. According to an appellate court, to prevail on a replevin claim in New York, the plaintiff must allege that, “the defendant is in possession of certain property of which the plaintiff claims to have a superior right.” This means the plaintiff’s claim to ownership may be more legitimate than the defendant’s.
So if a defendant stole an item the plaintiff purchased, the plaintiff has a legitimate reason to own it because she purchased it, but the defendant’s theft makes their possession illegitimate.
What about a plaintiff who gave a defendant the property temporarily? If a defendant borrowed an item but failed to return it to the plaintiff, who was the original owner, the plaintiff has a legitimate reason to possess it since she still owns it. While the defendant may have had a legitimate reason to possess it initially, since it was only on loan, the plaintiff’s claim is more legitimate. The defendant had held the item for too long for longer than the parties had agreed.
Here’s a harder one: If someone stole art from the plaintiff, the thief listed the art for sale, and the defendant bought the art for a fair price but didn’t realize it was stolen, would the plaintiff or defendant have a better claim? Both sides have some claim. The defendant may argue that she paid fair market value for the property and should be able to keep it. The plaintiff may argue, however, that she has a more legitimate claim because she would have had the property but for the theft. New York law sides with the plaintiff in cases like this.
Seeking injunctive relief
A plaintiff may not want to wait until the end of a lawsuit to get her property out of the hands of the defendant. Lawsuits could take years. And the defendant, who must not be a good person if she stole the plaintiff’s property, may take bad care of it, destroy it, get rid of it, or hide it.
Normally, to get an injunction right away, a movant needs to allege that there is some kind of irreparable injury that will imminently occur without the injunction. Merely wanting your property back may not suffice.
The law accounts for this in New York. Article 71 of the CPLR, “Recovery of Chattel” provides a procedure in which a plaintiff can seek an order directing a sheriff to forcefully seize property at issue in a replevin claim. The statute requires the plaintiff to pay fees to the sheriff, and the plaintiff may have to pay an undertaking to secure a claim by the defendant that the plaintiff wrongly interfered with the defendant’s interest in the property.
This procedure exists to prevent people from taking the law into their own hands, or what lawyers call “self help.” Instead of breaking into someone’s house and taking property, risking a violent confrontation, a litigant has a procedure to follow that allows law enforcement to—hopefully—dispassionately and safely secure the property until a court can hear everyone’s arguments. While the police nominally get involved when someone steals property, in practice they may be too busy with imminent threats for investigations or simply less involved in matters that do not directly involve public safety.
The downside to seeking injunctive relief is that litigation is expensive. Filing for injunctive relief only makes sense when the property is more valuable than the plaintiff’s time and expense of filing .
Enforcing a judgment
So what happens when a court decides that a plaintiff is entitled to recover their property? The procedure is very similar to the one involved in an injunction. The court delivers the order to a sheriff, who then takes control of the property for a fee.
Because of the costs involved, matters that make it to replevin litigation tend to concern very valuable or unique property, such as artwork or precious jewelry.
But like many legal claims, the statute of limitations may bar some claims unless the plaintiff moves quickly.