In a voluntary bailment, another person accepts responsibility for the items. In an involuntary bailment, someone ends up with the goods without ever intending to do so. Involuntary bailments most commonly occur with dry cleaners and auto shops. In these situation, the holder of the items must take care of them for a reasonable time period.
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Therefore, if a case was one where slightcare could not be required, the easiest way to escape from the diffi-culty was to say that there was no bailment. Many cases decided be-fore the days of the flexible rule of reasonable care under the cir-cumstances can probably be explained in this way. But if the careto be used is reasonable care under the circumstances, the law is freeto include within the definition of bailment cases which before havebeen bothersome anomalies.
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The bailee receives only control or possession of the property while the bailor retains the ownership interests in it. During the specific period a bailment exists, the bailee's interest in the property is superior to that of all others, including the bailor, unless the bailee violates some term of the agreement.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Bailment
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9 'If, as is suggested, the bailee in most, if not all cases of involuntarybailment, is under a duty to use some care toward the chattel, it mustbe remembered that this is not slight care as defined for a three-degree scale of care, but is reasonable care under the circumstances,which may be less than slight care.
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If there is care which is less thanwhat is conventionally known as slight care, its use can be re-quired where less care should be required than in a voluntary gratui-tous bailment. Under the three-degree system, there is no way oftaking care of an involuntary bailment.
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A bailment is a temporary transfer of property to another for a limited time and for a specific purpose. Not all bailments are the same, but they generally share many of these characteristics:
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A requisite to the creation of a bailment is the express or implied acceptance of possession of or control over the property by the bailee. A person cannot unwittingly become a bailee. Because a bailment is a contract, knowledge and acceptance of its terms are essential to its enforcement.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Bailment
A rental or lease of personal property might be a bailment, depending upon the agreement of the parties. A bailment is created when a parking garage attendant, the bailee, is given the keys to a motor vehicle by its owner, the bailor.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Bailment
Perhaps that is nothing more than say-ing that it is a question of undertaking and perhaps there is an inti-mate connection between undertaking and estoppel. This explana-tion of the case, if admissible, at least avoids doing violence to theordinary doctrine of consideration.
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involuntary bailment definition
The definition of involuntary bailment is another person accepts responsibility for the items.