from
Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856)
CONFUSION OF GOODS. This takes place where the goods of two or more persons
become mixed together so that they cannot be separated. There is a
difference between confusion and commixtion; in the former it is impossible,
while in the latter it is possible, to make a separation. Bowy. Comm. 88.
2. When the confusion takes place by the mutual consent of the owners,
they have an interest in the mixture in proportion to their respective
shares. 2 Bl. Com. 405; 6 Hill, N. Y. Rep. 425. But if one willfully mixes
his money, corn or hay, with that of another man, without his approbation
or knowledge, the law, to guard against fraud, gives the entire property
without any account, to him whose original dominion is invaded land
endeavored to be rendered uncertain, without his consent. Ib.; and see 2
Johns. Ch. It. 62 2 Kent's Comm. 297.
3. There may be a case neither of consent nor of willfulness, in the
confusion of goods; as where a bailee by negligence or unskillfulness, or
inadvertence, mixes up his own goods of the same sort with those bailed; and
there may be a confusion arising from accident and unavoidable casualty.
Now, in the latter case of accidental intermixture, the rule, following the
civil law, which deemed the property to be held in common, might be adopted;
and it would make no difference whether the mixture produced a thing of the
same sort or not; as, if the wine of two persons were mixed by accident. See
Dane's Abr. ch. 76, art. 5, Sec. 19.
4. But in cases of mixture by unskilfulness, negligence, or
inadvertence, the true principle seems to be, that if a man having
undertaken to keep the property of another distinct from, mixes it with his
own, the whole must, both at law and in equity, be taken to be the property
of the other, until the former puts the subject under such circumstances,
that it may be distinguished as satisfactorily as it might have been before
the unauthorized mixture on his part. 15 Ves. 432, 436, 439, 440; 2 John.
Ch. R. 62; Story on Bailm. c. l, Sec. 40. And see 7 Mass. 11. 123; Dane's
Abr. c. 76, art. 3, Sec. 15; Com. Dig. Pleader, 3 M 28; Bac. Ab. Trespass, E
2; 2 Campb. 576; 2 Roll. 566, 1, 15 2 Bul. 323. 2 Cro. 366, 2 Roll. 393; 5
East, 7; 21 Pick. R. 298.