Court Opinion

ID: 9553529
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:31:14.415591+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:31:30.377404
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(concurring and dissenting) :
I concur in that portion of the main opinion with respect to commencement of work, etc., but dissent from that portion having to do with priority of liens of materialmen.
The main opinion says, “We see no distinction between the mortgage in Utah Savings & Loan Association v. Meehan.” This statement is disarming. True, there is no difference in the recorded mortgage, upon which Utah Savings relied, and the one here. The fallacy of the main opinion’s conclusion lies in its assumption that the cause of action in the Utah Savings case was identical to this present Western Mortgage case. The former was based on the recorded mortgage, while in this case it was based on an unrecorded collateral agreement snuggled to the bosoms of the mortgagor and mortgagee, without any opportunity for the materialmen to take a look-see.
The cases are not the same. In Utah Savings, materialmen could rely on the record. In our present case the main opinion charges materialmen with notice of an unrecorded, independent agreement. The recorded mortgage in Utah Savings said advancement of moneys by the mortgagee was obligatory. The unrecorded collateral agreement in the present case clearly was *414not obligatory, but volitional. A material-man may not deliver a two-by-four piece of plywood if he knew he could not rely on the recorded promise of the mortgagee to pay the mortgagor as represented, but would be bound by a secret, unrecorded agreement that would permit the mortgagee to cancel the recorded promise five minutes after it was recorded, an incident beyond the ken of a materialman. To conclude otherwise does not dignify the recording act.