innocent purchaser, on restitution of the property to the owner, may order the price paid by the purchaser to be repaid to him out of any money found on the convict when arrested. This provision is in addition to that allowing compensation to a person injured by a felony." [1]
If the sale did not take place in market overt, and the stolen property has not been restored to the true owner, the seller is bound to nothing in justice, according to a very probable opinion. For the property is no longer in his possession or under his control, so he cannot restore it to the owner; if he received money for it, he received it in good faith for value, and when he has mixed it with his other moneys it would seem that he makes it his own. [2] It would seem that this is in accordance with English law: " A mesne possessor acquiring the goods innocently from the thief, and reselling before conviction, is under no obligation in trover to the original owner." [3]
It was said above that the seller is bound to nothing in justice, but if without relatively serious inconvenience to himself he can, by giving the requisite information, procure the restoration of the property to its rightful owner, he will be bound to do this out of charity.
If the property was not sold in market overt, and if it has been restored to the rightful owner, the purchaser can demand back the purchase money from the seller, rescinding the contract for failure of warranty which is implied in every such sale: " In a contract of sale, unless the circumstances of the contract are such as to show a different intention, there is: (i) An implied condition on the part of the seller that in the case of a sale he has a right to sell the goods, and that in the case of an agreement to sell he will have a right to sell the goods at the time when the property is to pass; (2) an implied warranty that the buyer shall have and enjoy quiet possession of the goods." [4]
These solutions would seem to be tenable whether the mesne possessor obtained the property in good faith by purchase or by gift, and whether he gained anything or not by selling it. For although one who possesses another's property either in itself or in its equivalent is bound to make restitution to the owner, a mesne possessor who has sold it in good faith to another no longer possesses it even in its equivalent, for the
