What relevance does a tort doctrine from the late Middle Ages hold for modern electronic forms of property like digital assets? Quite a bit, it turns out. Recent court rulings show the venerable common-law tort of conversion providing an effective vehicle for relief in a number of cryptocurrency and NFT disputes.

What Is Conversion?

The tort of conversion has been famously described as “the forgotten tort,” obscure in its origins and requirements. See William L. Prosser, “The Nature of Conversion”, 42 Cornell L. Rev. 168 (1957). Conversion is described as “an intentional exercise of dominion or control over a chattel which so seriously interferes with the right of another to control it that the actor may justly be required to pay the other the full value of the chattel.” Restatement (Second) of Torts §222A (Am. L. Inst. 1965). A conversion claim thus seeks to recover the “value” of such property, rather than the property itself; the latter claim is the purview of the tort of replevin. See generally 66 Am. Jur. 2d Replevin § 5 (2023).