Opinion ID: 1626792
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The title to the Act is as follows:

Text: AN ACT to be known as the Uniform Commercial Code, relating to certain commercial transactions in or regarding personal property and contracts and other documents concerning them, including sales, commercial paper, bank deposits and collections, letters of credit, bulk transfers, warehouse receipts, bills of lading, other documents of title, investment securities, and secured transactions, including certain sales of accounts, chattel paper, and contract rights; providing for public notice to third parties in certain circumstances; regulating procedure, evidence and damages in certain court actions involving such transactions, contracts or documents; to make uniform the law with respect thereto; and repealing inconsistent legislation. In this title there is not one word as to any prohibited act or criminal penalty for violation. There is reference to repeal of inconsistent legislation but no mention of provisions enacted in lieu thereof. Section 10102 of the Act is a specific repealer identifying chapters and sections of the 1962 Code that were repealed. There are then many sections making substitutions mostly for the purpose of harmonizing the names of instruments and transactions. Section 710.12, Code of 1962 is not included in the specific repealer but is specifically repealed by section 10153 of the Act. The new section does nothing more than change the terminology of the old statute to bring it in harmony with new terminology, but it does repeal the old and attempt to enact a new statute. Resultantly, it must be treated as a new statute. The title to the Act, quoted supra, is long and comprehensive. It covers by reference a multitude of civil transactions and remedies, contract rights, evidence and damages incident to breach of contract obligations. The threat of prosecution for larceny might be a club over the head of a defaulting debtor, but it is not an element of damage for breach of contract. The title to this Act contains nothing indicating criminal responsibility. A prosecution for a criminal act might depend for its proof the doing of an act that is also the breach of a contract obligation if there is a statute making the act criminal, but prosecution for crime is not a contract right. There may, of course, be both civil and criminal liability for the same act. Neither civil nor criminal procedure is necessarily exclusive. They are separate and distinct. No one reading the title to the Act would be alerted or be led to think that on the 151st page there was a recitation and prohibition of acts that might lead to five years in the penitentiary.