Also known as: thing in action · chose in action · choses in action
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A category of personal property consisting of intangible rights or claims enforceable only by legal action rather than physical possession. The category encompasses contract rights, debts, and other choses in action that fall outside the definition of goods and within the residual class of general intangibles.
Titan Industries agrees to sell its portfolio of patent licenses to True North Logistics for a fixed price. The licenses represent rights to receive royalties from third-party manufacturers. Because the licenses constitute things in action rather than movable items, the transaction is not a sale of goods under Article 2.
Delta Hotels grants Maple Suites a security interest in its rights to receive performance-based management fees under long-term contracts. The fees remain subject to verification and possible forfeiture. The rights qualify as things in action and therefore fall within the definition of general intangibles rather than accounts.
During declared hostilities, a U.S. resident holds a debt owed by a foreign national. The debt is a thing in action that becomes subject to government seizure along with tangible enemy property.
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View caseA defendant removes documents evidencing a debt owed to the victim. The documents represent a thing in action, so the taking supports a larceny conviction even though no physical chattel changes hands.
In December 1948, Morissette went hunting on a large tract of land in Michigan that the Government had used as a practice bombing range for the Air Force. Spent bomb casings from the range had been dumped into heaps and left exposed to the weather for four years or more. Morissette collected three tons of the casings, flattened them at a nearby farm, and sold them for eighty-four dollars. Morissette worked as a fruit stand operator in the summer and as a trucker and scrap iron collector in the winter. He was an honorably discharged veteran of World War II who had a good reputation among his neighbors. He loaded the casings onto his truck and transported them in broad daylight without any effort to conceal what he was doing. When authorities began an investigation, Morissette voluntarily and candidly told them the whole story, explaining that he believed the casings were abandoned and that he had no intention of stealing them. He was indicted for unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly stealing and converting property of the United States valued at eighty-four dollars in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 641. At trial, the District Court refused to permit Morissette to show that he thought the property was abandoned or to argue that he lacked criminal intent. The court instructed the jury that if it believed the government testimony, Morissette was guilty, and the jury convicted him. The court sentenced him to two months in prison or a fine of two hundred dollars. The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseA legislature retroactively extinguishes a pending contract claim held by a private party. The claim is a thing in action whose destruction raises a question whether the statute operates as an ex post facto law.
The grandson Normand Morrison executed his will on August 21, 1779. On March 21, 1793, the Court of Probate for Hartford County disapproved the will and refused to record it. More than eighteen months elapsed from this decree, during which the right of appeal was lost under Connecticut law. There was no law in Connecticut allowing a new hearing before the court of probate except through special legislative action. On the second Thursday of May 1795, the Legislature of Connecticut passed a resolution setting aside the March 1793 decree of the Court of Probate. The resolution granted a new hearing before the same court of probate with liberty of appeal in six months. This resolution was passed after the time for appeal from the original decree had expired. A new hearing occurred on July 27, 1795, resulting in the court of probate approving the will and ordering it recorded. An appeal followed in August 1795 to the Superior Court at Hartford, which affirmed the decree in February 1796. The Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut then reviewed the case and in June 1796 confirmed the judgment of the Superior Court. Calder and his wife asserted a claim to the premises as the heiress of Normand Morrison the physician. Bull and his wife asserted their claim under the will of Normand Morrison the grandson. The matter came before the United States Supreme Court for review of the state court proceedings.
View caseA civilian contractor working overseas is accused of misappropriating funds owed under a government contract. The funds represent a thing in action whose status affects whether a court-martial has jurisdiction over the civilian.
Mrs. Clarice Covert, a civilian, killed her husband, a sergeant in the United States Air Force, at an airbase in England where she was residing with him. Mrs. Dorothy Smith, also a civilian, killed her husband, a colonel in the United States Army, at a post in Japan where she was living with him. Both women were tried by courts-martial convened under Article 118 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for the offense of murder and were sentenced to life imprisonment. The court-martial that tried Mrs. Covert was composed of Air Force officers after charges were preferred by Air Force personnel. The judgment was affirmed by the Air Force Board of Review but reversed by the Court of Military Appeals on grounds related to the defense of insanity, leaving a retrial pending in the District of Columbia. Mrs. Smith was tried by an Army court-martial. Her conviction was approved by the Army Board of Review and the Court of Military Appeals, after which she was confined in a federal penitentiary in West Virginia. While Mrs. Covert was held pending retrial, her counsel petitioned the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for a writ of habeas corpus. That court ordered her release. The Government appealed directly to the Supreme Court under 28 U.S.C. § 1252. Mrs. Smith's father petitioned the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia for habeas corpus relief on her behalf. That court denied the writ, and while an appeal was pending in the Fourth Circuit the Supreme Court granted certiorari. The two cases were consolidated for argument. An executive agreement between the United States and Great Britain permitted United States military courts to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over offenses committed in Great Britain by American servicemen or their dependents. A similar administrative agreement governed jurisdiction in Japan. Both women were tried pursuant to Article 2(11) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which extends court-martial jurisdiction to persons accompanying the armed forces outside the continental United States subject to treaty or international law provisions.
View caseThings in action are excluded from the definition of goods because they are intangible rights enforceable only by legal action rather than by physical possession or delivery. Goods must be movable at the time of identification to the contract.
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Yes. The UCC expressly includes things in action within the residual category of general intangibles, which covers personal property other than accounts, goods, instruments, and other enumerated types of collateral.
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A security interest can attach when the collateral description uses the term general intangibles, because that term expressly encompasses things in action that do not qualify as accounts or other excluded categories.
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Rights to payment that remain subject to substantial conditions precedent are treated as things in action and therefore as general intangibles rather than accounts, because accounts require an unconditional right to payment for services already rendered.
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…or withholds, by any means whatever, from the possession of the true owner or of any other person any money, personal property, thing in action, evidence of debt or contract, or article of value of any kind, steals such property and is guilty of larceny.” The same section provides further that it shall be no defense to a…