CONVENTIO, canon law. The act of convening1 or calling together the parties, by summoning the defendant2. Vide Reconvention. When the defendant was brought to answer, he was said to be convened3, which the canonists called conventio, because the plaintiff and defendant met to contest. Sto. Eq. Pl. 402; 4 Bouv. Inst. n. 4117.
CONVENTION, contracts, civil law. A general term which comprehends all kinds of contracts, treaties, pacts4, or agreements. It is defined to be the consent of two or more persons to form with each other an engagement, or to dissolve or change one which they had previously5 formed. Domat, Lois Civ. 1. 1, t. 1, s. 1 Dig. lib. 2, t. 14, 1. 1 Lib. 1, t. 1, 1. 1, 4 and 5; 1 Bouv. Inst. n. 100.
CONVENTION, legislation. This term is applied6 to a selecting of the delegates elected by the people for other purposes than usual legislation. It is mostly used to denote all assembly to make or amend7 the constitution of, a state, but it sometimes indicates an assembly of the delegates of the people to nominate officers to be supported at an election.
CONVERSANT8. One who is in the habit of being in a particular place, is said to be conversant there. Barnes, 162.
CONVERSION9. torts. the uulawful turning or applying the personal goods of another to the use of the taker, or of some other person than the, owner; or the unlawful destroying or altering their nature. Bull. N. P. 44; 6 Mass. 20; 14 Pick. 356; 3 Brod. & Bing. 2; Cro. Eliz. 219 12 Mod. 519; 5 Mass. 104; 6 Shepl. 382; Story, Bailm. 188, 269, 306; 6 Mass. 422; 2 B. & P. 488; 3 B. & Ald. 702; 11 M. & W. 363; 8 Taunt11. 237; 4 Taunt. 24.
2. When a party takes away or wrongfully assumes the right to goods which belong to another, it will in general be sufficient evidence of a conversion but when the original taking was, lawful10, as when the party found the goods, and the detention12 only is illegal, it is absolutely necessary to male a demand of the goods, and there must be a refusal to deliver them before the conversion will, be complete. 1 Ch. Pr. 566; 2 Saund. 47 e, note 1 Ch. Pl. 179; Bac. Ab. Trover, B 1 Com. Dig. 439; 3 Com. Dig. 142; 1 Vin. Ab. 236; Yelv. 174, n.; 2 East, R. 405; 6 East, R. 540; 4 Taunt. 799 5 Barn. & Cr. 146; S. C. 11 Eng. C. L. Rep. 185; 3 Bl. Com. 152; 3 Bouv. Inst. n. 3522, et seq. The refusal by a servant todeliver the goods entrusted13 to him by his master, is not evidence of a conversion by his master. 5 Hill, 455.
3. The tortious taking of property is, of itself, a conversion 15 John. R. 431 and any intermeddling with it, or any exercise of dominion14 over it, subversive15 of the dominion of the owner, or the nature of the bailment16, if it be bailed17, is, evidence of a conversion. 1 Nott & McCord, R. 592; 2 Mass. R. 398; 1 Har. & John. 519; 7 John. R. 254; 10 John. R. 172 14 John. R. 128; Cro. Eliz. 219; 2 John. Cas. 411. Vide Trover.
