Son wins conversion suit against parents after they tossed his porn stash and sex toys
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A Michigan couple who destroyed their adult son’s collection of pornography and sex toys will have to pay him damages for conversion, a federal judge in Kalamazoo, Michigan, has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney of the Western District of Michigan ruled for 42-year-old David Werking, who lost “a trove of pornography and an array of sex toys” after he moved out of his parents’ home, according to Maloney, who issued decisions in the case here and here.
Werking now lives in Indiana. He values his destroyed collection at more than $25,000 and says he is entitled to triple damages, a high-enough amount to give the federal court diversity jurisdiction.
MLive.com and the Holland Sentinel have Dec. 17 stories on Maloney’s latest decision, which was issued last month. How Appealing notes the coverage, while the Volokh Conspiracy has highlights from the prior opinion, issued in August 2019.
A lawyer for Werking’s parents has hired Victoria Hartmann, the executive director of the Erotic Heritage Museum in Las Vegas, as an expert to help determine damages, according to the Holland Sentinel.
Werking had moved into his parents’ home in October 2016 after a divorce. He called police about an “incident,” spurring officers to ask Werking to leave the home for at least three days.
After leaving in August 2017, Werking asked his parents to return his property multiple times. While Werking received some possessions, he didn’t get the pornography or sex toys. In early 2018, Werking’s father informed him that the pornography had been destroyed, along with his sex toys and “smutty magazines.”
“Frankly, David,” his father wrote in an email, “I did you a big favor by getting rid of all this stuff for you.” In a later email, Werking’s father said he destroyed the pornography “for your own mental and emotional health.”
Werking had sued for conversion of his property under Michigan law, which bars individuals from converting another’s property to their own use. Michigan caselaw makes clear that converting property to one’s own use can include destruction because of a belief that the destroyed items have “deleterious effects,” Maloney said.
A lawyer for the parents had argued that Werking assumed the risk that his property would be destroyed because of a warning from his parents before he moved in. The parents had asked Werking not to bring any porn with him and warned that it would be destroyed if he did so.
Maloney said assumption of risk is a doctrine that applies to negligence, not an intentional tort like conversion.
Werking also said the parents could not argue that Werking had abandoned the property because that doctrine doesn’t apply to a statutory conversation claims. If it did apply, the facts make clear that there was no abandonment because the parents refused to allow Werking to return to collect the items, Maloney said.
