Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/74/646/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 04:38:25+00:00

Document:
"That no bill of sale, mortgage, hypothecation, or conveyance of any vessel, or part of any vessel, of the United States shall be valid against any person other than the grantor or mortgagor, his heirs and devisees, and persons having actual notice thereof unless such bill of sale, Mortgage, hypothecation, or conveyance be recorded in the office of the collector of the customs where such vessel is registered or enrolled,"
a recording of a mortgage in the office of the collector of the home port of the vessel has the effect, by its own force and irrespective of any formalities required by a state statute to give effect to chattel mortgages, to give the mortgagee a preference over a subsequent purchaser or mortgagee.
2. The home port of the vessel is the port in the office o£ whose collector the bill of sale, mortgage &c., should be recorded, not the port of last registry or enrollment when not such home port.
3. The act is constitutional.
"No bill of sale, mortgage, hypothecation, or conveyance of any vessel or part of any vessel of the United States shall be valid against any person other than the grantor or mortgagor, his heirs and devisees, and persons having actual notice thereof unless such bill of sale, mortgage, hypothecation, or conveyance be recorded in the office of the collector of customs where such vessel is registered or enrolled."
"Every mortgage of chattels which shall not be accompanied &c., shall be absolutely void as against the creditors of the mortgagor, and as against subsequent purchasers and mortgagees in good faith unless the mortgage or a true copy thereof shall be filed as directed in the succeeding section of this act."
"Every mortgage filed in pursuance of this act, shall cease to be valid as against the creditors of the person making the same or against subsequent mortgagees in good faith after the expiration of one year from the filing thereof unless within &c., a true copy of such mortgage shall be again filed in the office of the clerk or register aforesaid of the town or city where the mortgagor shall then reside."
of the above-quoted law of New York, but it was not refiled at the end of a year.
Subsequently to the date of this mortgage of Hoyt to White's Bank, the vessel became the property of one Zahn, residing at Sandusky, Ohio, and on the 2d June, 1865, he mortgaged her to one Smith. The mortgage to Smith was recorded in the collector's office at the port of Sandusky, Ohio, on the 17th of June, 1865, where the Emmett was duly enrolled, and at which place, as above stated, the then owner, Zahn, resided. The vessel having been sold subsequently to the date of both the mortgages under a paramount lien for seamen's wages, and a remnant of the proceeds of sale after payment of such wages remaining but being insufficient to pay either mortgage, the question was to which of the mortgages it should be applied -- to the first mortgage, that of the bank, or to the subsequent one, Smith's? Smith set up that the lien of the mortgage to White's Bank was lost on account of the omission to refile it in the Clerk's Office of Erie County at the end of the year, and this position it was which raised the material question in the case -- the question, namely, whether or not the recording of the mortgage in the collector's office at Buffalo had the effect, by its own force, and irrespective of the filing in the clerk's office, to give a preference to it over any subsequent purchaser or mortgagee?
The court below decreed that the fund should be appropriated to Smith's mortgage, and White's Bank appealed.
"That no bill of sale, mortgage, hypothecation, or conveyance of any vessel or part of any vessel of the United States shall be valid against any person other than the grantor or mortgagor, his heirs and devisees, and persons having actual notice thereof unless such bill of sale, mortgage, hypothecation, or conveyance be recorded in the office of the collector of customs where such vessel is registered or enrolled."
"No bill of sale, mortgage, hypothecation, conveyance, or discharge of mortgage or other encumbrance of any vessel shall be recorded unless the same is duly acknowledged before a notary public or other officer authorized to take acknowledgment of deeds."
"at or nearest to which the owner, if there be but one, or if more than one, the husband or acting and managing owner of said ship or vessel usually resides. And the name of the said ship or vessel, and the port to which she shall so belong, shall be painted on her stern, on a black ground, in white letters, of not less than three inches in length,"
"in all bills of sale of vessels registered or enrolled shall be set forth the part of the vessel owned by each person selling and the part conveyed to each person purchasing."
And in this connection we may also mention that in case of the sale of a vessel, which can only be to a citizen or citizens of the United States, and a new permanent registry becomes necessary, the former certificate of registry must be delivered to the collector to whom application is made for the new registry, to be transmitted by him to the Register of the Treasury to be cancelled; and in every such sale or transfer of a vessel there shall be some instrument in writing in the nature of a bill of sale, which shall recite at length the certificate of the former registry; otherwise the ship or vessel shall be incapable of being registered anew. [Footnote 5] And as this bill of sale is recorded in the collector's office in which the new permanent registry is made, it affords information to any person examining it as to the former home port and collector's office in which the vessel had been previously registered, and where examination can be made for any bill of sale, mortgage or other encumbrance upon or against the vessel.
mortgagee in ascertaining the true condition of the title of a vessel, as it respects written evidence of the same, or of encumbrances thereon, from an examination of the records of the collector's office at the several home ports of the vessel, as the records of the last home port refers to the preceding one, the last bill of sale incorporating into it a copy of the previous certificate of registry. In this respect, the system of recording in the collector's office possesses very great advantages over the filing of these instruments in the clerks' offices where the vendor or mortgagor happened to reside at the time, as no means exist, under this practice, by which the subsequent purchaser or mortgagee, by any diligence, could obtain a knowledge of the actual condition of the title.
We are aware that in the case of Potter v. Irish, [Footnote 6] the court came to the conclusion, upon an examination of the acts on this subject, that bills of sale, mortgages &c., under the act of 1850, in order to protect the title of the purchaser or mortgagee, should be recorded in the office of the collector of customs at the port of the last registry or enrollment, though not the home port of the vessel. And the court in the case of Chadwick v. Baker, [Footnote 7] followed this decision. Our respect for the courts rendering these decisions has led us to examine the several statutes upon which this question depends with more than usual care, and after the best consideration we have been able to give, we are obliged to differ with them. We think the better construction of these statutes leads to the conclusion that the home port was the one in the contemplation of Congress at which these instruments were to be recorded, and is the more appropriate one in furtherance of the object for which the act was passed.
The temporary registry or enrollment is at a collector's office in a district where the owners do not reside, and is made without any reference to such residence. It is made at any collector's office, and at any port within the limits of the United States where the vessel may happen to be at the time this temporary document is registered.
While the home port may be at the City of New York, the temporary registry or enrollment may be made at New Orleans or San Francisco, or Portland, in Oregon, where it would be as inconvenient for the vendee or mortgagee to make a record of the bill of sale or mortgage as it would be for a person dealing in this species of property to acquire any notice of such record, whereas a record at the home port is within the district where the owners reside, and where negotiations or dealings in respect to this species of property would naturally be conducted.
Some question is made as to the power of Congress over the title and property of vessels of the United States to such an extent as to enable it to pass a recording act.
But after the regulation of this species of property by the several acts of Congress to which we have referred, and in respect to which there has never been a question, there can be very little hesitation in conceding the power to protect the rights of subsequent bona fide purchasers and mortgagees therein.
Ships or vessels not brought within these provisions of the acts of Congress, and not entitled to the benefits and privileges thereunto belonging, are of no more value as American vessels than the wood and iron out of which they are constructed. Their substantial if not entire value consists in their right to the character of national vessels, and to have the protection of the national flag floating at their mast's head.
Decree reversed and a decree entered for the appellant.
9 Stat. at Large 440.
Act 31 December, 1792, § 3.
Act 31 December, 1792, § 11.
1 Stat. at Large 288, § 3.
1 Stat. at Large 294, § 14.
1 Stat. at Large 287.
1 Stat. at Large § 2, 288.
The Martha Washington, 25 Law Reporter 22; Fontaine v. Beers, 19 Ala. 722; Mitchell v. Steelman, 8 Cal. 363; Shaw v. McCandless, 36 Miss. 296.

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