Court Opinion

ID: 9779428
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:50:28.181691+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:26.354210
License: Public Domain

HECHT, Justice,
concurring.
I join in both the result and the reasoning of the majority. I add only this clarifying postcript.
We hold that in a deficiency suit by a secured creditor, the creditor has the burden of pleading and proving notice to the debtor of the creditor’s intent to dispose of the collateral, and disposition in a commercially reasonable manner. Our holding is based partly on the fact that the creditor has the duty under law to give such notice and to dispose of collateral in a commercially reasonable manner.
The creditor has these same legal duties, of course, regardless of whether he is the plaintiff in a deficiency suit against the debtor, or the defendant in an action by the debtor for failure to make a commercially reasonable disposition of collateral. It does not necessarily follow, however, that the creditor has the same burden of pleading and proof when he is in the posture of a defendant as we hold he does when he is a plaintiff. Who bears that burden in an action against the creditor is an issue as to which I understand our opinion to intimate nothing, either express or implied.