Court Opinion

ID: 9854686
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:11:52.595389+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:15.923287
License: Public Domain

Felton, C. J.,
concurring specially. The conditional-sale contract in this case was foreclosed in Georgia within six months from the date the property was brought into Georgia. I think the case should be controlled by the ruling in Hubbard v. Andrews & Co., 76 Ga. 177, but the Supreme Court in Smith Motor Car Co. v. Universal Credit Co., 176 Ga. 565 (168 S. E. 18), distinguished the Hubbard case by saying that in that case the mortgage was duly recorded in the State where it was executed and where the property was at that time. In the Hubbard case it did not appear that for the instrument to be valid it had to be recorded, so I cannot see how the record of the instrument in another State could make any difference if it was a valid paper between the parties without such recordihg. The reference in the headnote to the mortgage having been duly recorded in another State is immaterial when the opinion is not based on such a fact. It may be that the court in the Smith Motor Car Co. case overlooked the fact that the mortgage which was foreclosed in Armitage-Herschell Co. v. Muscogee Real Estate Co., 119 Ga. 552 (46 S. E. 634), was a Georgia second mortgage and not the out-of-State mortgage. I think that one holding an out-of-State mortgage, etc., has the option of foreclosing it within six months or of taking some action on it such as foreclosing it or bringing trover. This is certainly as good a notice as recording the instrument, and the fact that it is not properly attested could not make much difference as the instrument could be probated or put in such shape as to entitle it to record before the expiration of the six-months limit. (On the fourth page, not num*693bered, of the 76 Ga. Rep. there appears the following note: “By the act of 1866 (section 4270 of the Code), the decisions of the Supreme Court are required to be announced by written synopses of the points decided. The decisions thus announced are published as the opinions of the Justices delivering them, the head-notes generally being made by the Reporter. Where head-notes are made by the Court, it is so stated.”)