Court Opinion

ID: 9868375
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 18:31:59.521479+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:49.821742
License: Public Domain

On Petitions to Reheae,.
Both parties have filed petitions asking the court to rehear this case, disposed of at a former day of the term.
The conditional vendee urges that the court reconsider its former holding and allow him to recover the payments made by him on the truck, together with the insurance collected and appropriated by the conditional vendor, insisting that the insurance money should be treated as a payment and that section 3669, Thompson’s-Shannon’s Code, is applicable.
We considered this matter carefully on the original hearing. We do not think section '3'669 governs the case. That section provides the vendee’s measure of recovery where the seller, having regained possession of the property, fails to advertise and sell, as required by the statute. As a matter’ of fact, no departure from the statutory method of advertisement and sale on the part of the seller is pointed out.
The relation of the parties here became primarily that of bailee and bailor rather than that of conditional vendor and vendee and we have held the bailee to the ordinary degree of liability incurred by a bailee guilty of a conversion.
The circumstances of this case are unusual and we think the conclusion reached in this connection meets the justice of the situation.
The conditional vendor objects to our holding that in this case the value of the interest of the conditional vendee in the property might be properly measured by *147the amount of the payments that the vendee had made. Upon reconsideration of this matter we agree to the contention of the. vendor. The former disposition was intended to avoid the necessity of remanding the case, bnt the measure of damages adopted is perhaps not sufficiently accurate.
As heretofore stated, the vendee is entitled to recover the value of his interest in the truck. That interest would he the value of the truck less the amount owing to the vendor thereupon. However, it is the sound value of the truck that is to he taken as a basis for this calculation. The vendor collected the amount of the insurance, .which we assume would have covered the cost of repairing the vehicle. It would not do to base the calculation upon the value of the truck after it was wrecked and without any repairs. Without repairs the truck had only a junk value.
The former decree, therefore, will be modified and the cause remanded to the court below for a reference as to the' value of the truck and the amount owing thereupon, and the vendee will be entitled to a decree for the difference. The value of the truck will be estimated as it was on July 7, 19-27, before the accident happened.