Also known as: things in action · chose in action · choses in action
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A right to personal property that the owner does not possess and that can be enforced only by bringing a lawsuit. The right is intangible and distinct from any physical item that embodies it.
Tidal Energy granted Threshold Capital a security interest in all its proprietary software and the rights to receive annual license fees from farmers. The license fees represented a thing in action because they were rights to payment not yet reduced to possession. The financing statement described the collateral as general intangibles, which expressly include things in action under the UCC.
Delta Hotels assigned its rights to performance-based management fees to Maple Suites as collateral. The fees remained contingent on future verification and therefore constituted a thing in action. Maple Suites filed a financing statement covering general intangibles, which the UCC defines to include things in action.
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Continental Claims assigned its right to receive insurance proceeds from a future loss to Union Surety. Before any loss occurred the assignment transferred only a thing in action. After the fire loss fixed the claim the assignee could enforce the right by legal action against the insurer.
After a covered fire loss fixed a $450,000 claim, Continental Claims directed payment of the proceeds to Union Surety. The matured claim was a thing in action that could be assigned without the insurer's consent because it no longer depended on future contingencies.
Thirty days after a decedent's death a successor presented an affidavit to collect an instrument evidencing a debt that was a thing in action belonging to the estate. The person in possession of the instrument delivered it to the successor as required by the probate code.
A debtor transferred a right to receive future payments under a contract to a creditor within ninety days of bankruptcy. The right was a thing in action that constituted property of the estate subject to avoidance as a preference.
The UCC excludes things in action from the definition of goods under § 2-105(1). It includes them within the residual category of general intangibles under § 9-102(a)(42).
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A right to payment is a thing in action when it remains contingent on future events or verification and therefore falls outside the definition of an account. It stays within the general-intangibles category until the contingencies are removed.
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Once a loss occurs and fixes the amount due, the claim matures into an assignable chose in action. Anti-assignment clauses in the underlying contract ordinarily do not bar assignment of the matured right to proceeds.
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…that the same analysis must apply to absent class-action plaintiffs. In this regard petitioner correctly points out that a chose in action is a constitutionally recognized property interest possessed by each of the plaintiffs. Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co. , 339 U. S. 306 (1950). An adverse judgment by Kansas…