Kelly steals Rich’s brand new GMC Suburban. She applies a new coat of paint to the car. Assume that the paint job is worth $150. Can Rich recover the stolen car from Kelly? Yes, but he must pay Kelly $150 for the paint job Yes, because Kelly did not acquire title by accession and so it is still Rich’s property No, because Kelly acquired title by accession when she added labor to the car; but Kelly would have to pay Rich the car’s original value No, because one is only entitled to recover monetary damages in court for a theft; one is not entitled to specific performance

Kelly sneaks into Rich’s car body repair shop and steals an engine and 2 doors. She carries them home and installs them into her 1997 Chevy Blazer. Rich can probably recover… The doors and the engine themselves (Kelly must take apart her car and give back the parts), because she took the parts in bad faith. The whole car Just the value of the doors and engine, in most jurisdictions Just the increase in value that Kelly’s car underwent because of the addition of the doors and the engine.

Kelly is walking in a junkyard that she believes is not owned by anybody. She finds a dead Chevy Blazer and decides to bring it home and fix it up. She has the car towed to her house. Once there, she installs a new engine and some new parts and, eventually, gets the car to start working. It turns out that the junkyard is owned by Rich. Rich sues Kelly for the recovery of the car. Who will win? Rich, because more of the raw material belonged to him than to Kelly; though he will have to pay Kelly for the car’s increase in value because of Kelly’s engine and work Kelly, because Rich wasn’t going to use the car anyway, though she will have to pay Rich for the value of the car when she took it Kelly, because she turned the car from a non-working car into a working car, though she will have to pay Rich for the value of the car when she took it Rich and Kelly will own the car jointly

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