Detinue

This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "Detinue" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

In tort law, detinue (/ˈdɛtɪˌnjuː/^[1]) is an action to recover for the wrongful taking of personal property. It is initiated by an individual who claims to have a greater right to their immediate possession than the current possessor. For an action in detinue to succeed, a claimant must first prove that he had better right to possession of the chattel than the defendant, and second, that the defendant refused to return the chattel once demanded by the claimant.

Detinue allows for a remedy of damages for the value of the chattel, but unlike most other interference torts, detinue also allows for the recovery of the specific chattel being withheld.^[2]