Court Opinion

ID: 9864912
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:16:29.711677+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:32:34.204970
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Bouck,
dissenting.
For a proper understanding of the case, it behooves us to supplement the somewhat meager statement of facts in the opinion of the court. The written stipulation in evidence here, introduced by the plaintiff Bowman, which the opinion correctly declares to have been properly admitted, seems conclusive on certain vital issues of fact that call for judgment in favor of the Melnicks.
By this stipulation it is expressly conceded (1) that at the time of the sale by the Melnicks to the Grossmans all of the debts of the California Meat Company were paid, and it had no outstanding obligations except the then potential liability, if any, for future rent under the lease granted by the Home Public Market; (2) that the transfer from the Melnicks to the Grossmans was a bona fide transfer; (3) that at that time the company was solvent; (4) that the mortgage of January 5, 1933, for $1,783.42 was given in lieu of the $2,000 mortgage of November 23,1931; (5) that a mortgage was given on October 2, 1933, for $1,200 to indemnify the Melnicks for any sums they might have to pay to prevent liens for taxes, rent, etc.
It was further stipulated, in open court, that no claim was filed in the bankruptcy court by the Plome Public Market for rent or by the City and County of Denver for taxes or by any insurance company for insurance premiums.
The trial court expressly found that the defendants were not guilty of intentional fraud, which can only mean that they committed no actual fraud and had no' specific fraudulent intent. The finding negatives any contention that the conveyance or the mortgages were made with intent to hinder, delay or defraud either existing or sub*390sequent creditors. See: 27 C. J. 555, “Fraud. Conv.,” §258; Wellington v. Terry, 38 Colo. 285, 88 Pac. 467.
We must not forget that the Melnick-Grossman transactions were exactly equivalent to what the situation would have been if the company had conveyed its assets to the Grossmans and the latter then had given a purely voluntary mortgage to the Melnicks. Under the uncontradicted facts such a mortgage would not be invalid as. to subsequent creditors. And here the only creditors involved are shown by the irrefutable evidence in the record to be creditors who became such after the year 1932.
Inasmuch as the trial court found the actual value of the property covered by the mortgages to be only $1,000,, and the bona fide claim of the Melnicks under the mortgage of January 5, 1933 (a renewal of the original one of November 23, 1931) was for the principal sum of $1,-783.42, the mortgage of October 2, 1933 (given to secure the Melnicks against loss on account of any advances or payments they might make to prevent liens for taxes, rent, etc.), becomes immaterial, though the trial court itself found that the Melnicks later paid certain taxes and rent for which they were entitled to credit in a sum exceeding $400'.
The court opinion waves aside the merits of the controversy by saying that the issues had properly been found by the trial court on conflicting evidence. It is readily apparent, from examination of the record itself, that the evidence was in no sense conflicting, but that the trial judge and the opinion are simply mistaken.
Having found conflicting evidence where there is none, the opinion proceeds to consider several secondary contentions, among them the contention that the court erred in entering an absolute money judgment instead of entering the usual alternative replevin judgment for return of the goods or for the value if not returned. This action when commenced in the district court was designated as an action “for possession of personalty”; it is described in Bowman v. Melnich, 99 Colo. 311, 63 P. (2d) 464, as a *391“suit to recover possession of personal property or for its value”; the prayer of the amended complaint in the record asks judgment “for the possession of the property * * * or for the sum of $3,000 its value ’ ’; and throughout the litigation the case has been one of replevin. The absence of a replevin bond is something of which the defendants might perhaps have complained, but the absence of such a security cannot transform a case in replevin into one of trover and conversion. In simplifying procedure, our Code has not abolished the fundamental differences between one kind of case and another. Even if there had been a conversion and this had been what created a cause of action to recover possession, it would be wholly immaterial and could not transform the replevin suit into something else.
However, the facts entitle the Melnicks to judgment on the merits, and so I shall not further discuss the matter along this line, particularly since no authorities are cited to support the court’s conclusion that the judgment may be otherwise than alternative. Three of the justices— Young, Knous and the present writer—disagree with the court on this point.
The plain truth is that the trustee in bankruptcy fell down completely in his endeavor to bring himself within any reasonable reading of the opinion in Bowman v. MelnicJc, supra. I still believe—as stated in my dissenting opinion there — that the first opinion was erroneous. "Whether or not I was right, it was a decision merely on the pleadings, and it cannot be stretched so as reasonably to justify the court’s present conclusion.
I respectfully dissent.