In law, detinue is a common law remedy to obtain the return of chattels (personal property or portable property) that have been wrongly converted to the use of another person, or are being unlawfully withheld from a person with good title to the chattel. Unlike other remedies, detinue is not extinguished by the passage of time as long as the owner of the chattel pursues return of the chattel in a timely manner once he or she re-locates the chattels. However, a person who obtained illegally converted chattels as a good faith purchaser for consideration is immune from a remedy in detinue.

It is often used in cases involving the tort of conversion, but is also common in the law of bailment. In such a case it is possible to choose between the type of action based on the remedy being sought. Detinue is unique from other remedies in that it can force the return of the chattel instead of just the payment at the market-value of the chattel at the time of judgment. Detinue may also be obtained even if the person holding the chattel is not the person who illegally converted it.

For example, assume a painting is stolen from a private collection, and later turns up in a museum. If the owner can prove that every person in the chain of possession was aware that the painting had been stolen, the court will allow detinue as a remedy and order the return of the painting. However, if the museum can prove it could not have had any knowledge of the theft, it will not be required to either pay damages or return the painting. The owner's only remedy is damages in money against the thief. However, if the painting had been given to the museum as a gift by the thief, it will be forced to return the painting as no consideration was paid for possession of the artwork, even if the museum was unaware of the theft.

In some cases, documents abandoned by the government that later turn out to have historic value can be re-claimed in detinue, even though abandoned property may generally be taken by anyone and the original taking resulted in the preservation of the document. Documents and other chattels of great antiquity are almost always treated as not being transferred in good faith. For example, items looted from the Baghdad Museum during the Second Gulf War would almost certainly be subject to seizure by detinue as no court would accept an argument that those goods had passed in good faith.

See also

• Trespass to chattels
• Conversion (tort)