In property law, the intermingling of goods belonging to different owners is called which term?

• A. Commingling
• B. Admixture
• C. Intermixture
• D. Confusion

Answer: (D)

Confusion is the legal term for when goods belonging to different owners are mixed so that individual units cannot be distinguished. This often occurs with fungible items like grain, money, or oil. Because you can’t identify which unit came from which owner, the law treats the mixed mass as owned collectively by the parties, each holding an undivided share proportional to their contribution to the mixture. The act of mixing itself might be described as commingling or admixture, but the important legal idea—the result and how ownership is allocated—is confusion. For example, if two owners contribute 60 and 40 bushels of identical wheat and mix them, the resulting pile is owned in a corresponding 60/40 split, rather than each owner reclaiming their exact original units.