An owner entrusts a fur coat to a furrier for storage. The furrier's employee, thinking the coat is for sale, sells it to a customer. The owner sues the customer for recovery of the coat. Which statement is correct?

• A. Yes, the owner may recover the coat.
• B. No, because the customer was a good faith purchaser of a coat entrusted to the furrier.
• C. Yes, because the coat was not part of the furrier's merchandise.
• D. No, because the purchase price offset the debt owed to the customer.

Answer: (B)

The main idea is how title transfers when a chattel is placed with a trader who is a bailee. When the owner hands over a coat to a furrier merely for storage, the furrier is a bailee who has a duty to keep the coat safe and to return it to the owner. A sale by the bailee without authority is not a legitimate transfer of title to the buyer; the buyer typically has no rights to the coat because the bailee exceeded or violated the scope of the bailment.

The good-faith purchaser rule under modern sales law (the UCC) comes into play only when the goods are entrusted to a merchant for sale or consignment in the ordinary course of the merchant’s business. In that situation a buyer can obtain good title even if the goods belong to someone else. But here, the coat was entrusted for storage, not for sale. The employee’s belief that it was for sale does not authorize a transfer of ownership. Therefore the purchaser does not acquire valid title, and the owner can recover the coat from the purchaser.

So the correct idea is that the owner may recover the coat, because the sale was unauthorized and the buyer did not obtain proper title. The other reasoning—relying on a good-faith purchase from a storage bailment, or treating the coat as not part of the furrier’s merchandise, or offsetting with the purchase price—does not fit the facts.