Court Opinion

ID: 6410097
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-06-25 11:52:02.133184+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:51:20.613822
License: Public Domain

Shaw, C. J.
This mortgage of personal property was made in New York, the property then being there, to a citizen of New York, there residing, recorded in the town-clerk’s office in the town of Hillsdale, New York, and so made as to be valid, and bind the property in that state. Being removed into Massachusetts, it was here attached by the defendant, as the property of the mortgagor. The property in question was a horse and buggy wagon, and it appeared that the horse and wagon were sold by the plaintiff at Hillsdale, to McCarty, the mortgagor, and mortgaged back at the same time, to secure McCarty’s note given at the same time, in part payment for said purchase. The plaintiff, by this conveyance, acquired a good qualified title to the property, by the laws of the state of New York, a property sufficient to enable him to maintain trover against a wrongdoer; and an officer attaching the property as the property of the mortgagor, especially without paying, and in fact refusing to pay the debt of the mortgagee, when notified to him and demanded of him, is as to him a wrongdoer. A party who obtains a good title to property, absolute or qualified, by the laws of a sister state, is entitled to maintain and enforce those rights in this state. It is a case where the lex loci contractus must govern.
We think there is no ground for the argument, that by the St. 1843, c. 72, this mortgage should have been recorded by the clerk of the town where the mortgagor resides, and also of the town where he principally transacts his business, or follows his calling, and that said statute obviously applies only to mortgages made in Massachusetts.

Exceptions overruled,