Good faith doesn't change the seriousness of interference in conversion under Georgia tort law

How does a defendant’s good faith relate to the seriousness of interference for conversion? A quick, clear answer: good faith doesn’t change how serious the interference is.

If you’re digesting Georgia torts for the bar, you’ve probably run into conversion a few times. It’s one of those concepts that sounds straightforward—someone else’s property gets taken or treated as their own, and that’s wrong. But the real lift comes when you ask: what level of interference counts as “conversion” rather than a mere mistaken possession or a petty annoyance? And does thinking you’re justified change anything about liability?

Let’s unpack it with some plain-English clarity, then tie it back to Georgia’s landscape.

What is conversion, really?

Think of conversion as a serious snag in property rights. It isn’t just a borrowed item that’s returned late or a harmless stumble into someone else’s stuff. It’s an act that exercises control over someone else’s property in a way that denies the owner the use or possession of that property for a meaningful period of time. In practical terms, conversion looks like this: you take, use, sell, or destroy someone’s thing as if it were yours, without permission, and you deprive the owner of its use in a way that’s more than a fleeting incident.

A good way to picture it is to contrast conversion with trespass to chattels. Trespass to chattels focuses on harm to the person’s possessory interests and may require some actual damage or impairment. Conversion, by contrast, treats the interference as so substantial that it’s as if the owner’s property has been taken away for good, or at least for a long enough stretch to matter.

Seriousness is about the conduct, not the mood

Here’s the thing you should lock in: the degree of seriousness is judged by the nature of what the defendant did, not by what the defendant believed or felt. The law isn’t a mind-reader. If a defendant acts in a way that amounts to an unauthorized exercise of control—regardless of intent—the interference can be serious enough to be conversion.

That distinction matters. You might see someone claim, “I didn’t mean to harm, I was just borrowing.” If the borrowing involved taking someone’s property and treating it as their own—without permission and for a substantial period—the conduct can still be conversion, even if the person truly believed they had a right to the property.

Examples help here:

• Unlawful seizing and reselling someone’s car.

• Taking a piece of jewelry, wearing it, and never returning it.

• Using a coworker’s laptop to run personal projects, changing files, or copying data, and keeping it for days.

• Pledging a neighbor’s stereo as security on a loan without consent and never paying the loan back.

In each scenario, the seriousness comes from the fact that the owner’s rights were deprived in a meaningful way, not from the defendant’s mental state.

Good faith isn’t a shield, and that’s deliberate

What about good faith? Good faith means the person honestly believed their actions were justified or that they had a legitimate claim to the property. It’s a noble-sounding concept, but in the world of conversion, good faith rarely—if ever—changes the bottom line.

Why? Because conversion is an interference with property rights measured against the owner’s rights, not against the defendant’s beliefs. If the conduct fits the legal standard of conversion—typically, an unauthorized exercise of control that deprives the owner of use—the defendant can be liable even if they acted in good faith.

Here’s a useful mental model: you can be sincerely mistaken and still be liable for breaking the rules that protect property rights. The law is designed to deter and rectify unilateral, unauthorized grabs of someone else’s stuff. Good intentions don’t erase that.

Dollars and sense: what this means in damages

If you’re charting the path from liability to remedy, you’ll notice the “seriousness” of the interference also nudges the remedy. In conversion, damages usually aim to put the owner in the position they would have been in had the conversion not happened. That’s often measured by the market value of the property at the time of conversion, sometimes including any profits the wrongdoer gained from use of the property.

But be mindful: the exact damages picture can vary with jurisdiction and the particular facts. The core takeaway remains that the seriousness of interference guides liability, and good faith doesn’t magically convert liability into non-liability.

Georgia-specific flavor: same rules, familiar logic

Georgia tort law aligns with this general framework. The essence is simple: the defendant must interfere with the plaintiff’s rights in a way that is serious enough to amount to conversion, and the defendant’s belief about their rights does not automatically excuse the conduct.

In practical terms, a Georgia court would look at whether the defendant’s actions deprived the owner of possession or use in a meaningful way. It’s less about whether the defendant truly believed they owned the item and more about whether the interference crossed the threshold into conversion.

This is comforting for property owners and helpful for students: it keeps the focus on the conduct and its consequences, not on the defendant’s inner narrative. It also means that defenses, including “I honestly believed the property was mine,” rarely wipe the slate clean. The law emphasizes protecting property rights as a matter of public policy, not as a moral accounting of intent.

Guiding questions that sharpen your analysis

If you’re faced with a hypothetical in a Georgia context, here are prompts that help you stay on track:

• What specific action did the defendant take with the plaintiff’s property? Was it possession, use, transfer, or sale?

• Was the interference unauthorized? Did the defendant lack the owner’s permission to exercise control?

• How long did the interference last? Was the owner deprived of use for a meaningful period?

• Did the defendant’s conduct go beyond mere custody or temporary use and amount to a genuine exercise of ownership rights?

• Was there any actual damage to the property, or did the interference deprive the owner of the property’s use without physical harm?

• Is there any potential defense, and how does it interact with the seriousness standard? (Even if a defense exists, does it plausibly negate the core conversion element?)

A few real-world tangents that flow naturally

Property rights aren’t always clean lines and neat categories. They drift into everyday situations—like shared living spaces, roommate arrangements, or borrowed tools—that can test the boundaries of conversion. A neighbor borrows your power drill for a weekend and returns it after several weeks. Is that conversion? It might be, if the delay or the use deprives you of the drill in a meaningful way and the neighbor had no permission to keep it that long.

Or consider a company that unlawfully uses a former employee’s laptop to finish a project after the employee leaves. The device is returned, but the company used it extensively in a way that clearly exceeded any reasonable notion of permission. Here, the seriousness of the interference becomes the focal point, not what the company believed about its rights.

The takeaway is not to overthink every tiny misstep but to spot those moments where ownership rights are fundamentally eclipsed by control exercised without authorization. That’s where serious interference hides—in plain sight.

Why this matters beyond the bar talk

Understanding that good faith doesn’t excuse conversion helps you reason through disputes in law school clinics, internships, or even everyday disputes with neighbors or coworkers. It also reinforces a core idea in tort law: protecting property rights isn’t about who acted nicest or who believed they were acting for a good reason. It’s about whether that action interfered with someone else’s rights in a way the law recognizes as wrongful.

If you’re explaining conversion to someone new, you might use a simple story. Imagine a neighbor’s garden gnome—cute, harmless, and supposedly “yours” in the mind of the neighbor who took it to a friend’s yard for safekeeping. If the gnome is moved and kept for weeks, and that friend doesn’t have the neighbor’s permission to keep it, the interference is not just an awkward misstep. It’s a serious disruption of the owner’s rights. Good intentions don’t erase that.

A concise recap you can carry into discussions

• Conversion is about serious interference with someone’s property rights, not about the defender’s mood or beliefs.

• The seriousness of the interference is judged by the conduct and its consequences, especially whether the owner was deprived of use or possession for a meaningful period.

• Good faith—the honest belief that one’s actions were justified—does not typically excuse liability for conversion.

• Georgia law follows this standard: focus on the nature of the interference and its impact on the owner, rather than the defendant’s internal state.

• Damages for conversion aim to restore the owner to the position they would have been in had the conversion not occurred.

If you’re using this topic to sharpen your thinking about Georgia torts, keep that thread in mind: the law protects property rights robustly, and the path from wrongful interference to liability is paved by action and consequence, not by intention alone. Conversion challenges you to separate the sentiment of “I meant well” from the objective fact of who held the property and for how long. And that distinction—clear, practical, and surprisingly persistent—remains a steady guide through the gray areas of property law.