
    Paul Heimowitz, Appellant, v. Isidor Berg and Bela Cukor, Respondents.
    (Supreme Court, Appellate Term,
    June, 1911.)
    Conversion (tortious)—When lawful possession becomes tortious.
    Where a pledgee of stock lends it to a third person to vote upon and the borrower of the stock, instead of returning it to the pledgee, delivers it to one who claims that the pledgee is indebted to him and refuses to restore it to the owner, the owner may maintain an action against the latter for conversion.
    Appeal by the plaintiff from a judgment dismissing the complaint, rendered in the Municipal Court of the city of Hew York, borough of Manhattan, second district, at the close of plaintiff’s case.
    Nathan Kopf, for appellant.
    C. H. Griffiths, for respondent.
   Guy, J.

Action for conversion of certain stocks pledged with plaintiff’s assignor as security for a loan. Defendant Cukor borrowed the stock from the pledgee for the purpose • of voting thereon, agreeing in writing to return it in a week.

Cukor, instead of keeping his agreement, turned the stock over to Berg, who refused to return the stock, claiming (but not' proving) that Cukor owed some money to a corporation of which he was an officer.

Defendants offered no evidence, and the trial judge dismissed the complaint.

The delivery to Cukor was for a special purpose, and it did not defeat the pledgee’s lien thereon. Markham v. Jaudon, 41 N. Y. 236, 241; Fairbanks v. Sargent, 117 id. 334.

Berg, on the proofs, had no more right to retain the stock without the plaintiff’s consent than he would have had to take it forcibly.

Judgment reversed and new trial ordered, with costs to appellant to abide the event.

Seabury and Bijur, JJ., concur.

Judgment reversed.  