Court Opinion

ID: 9520148
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:32:11.00797+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:45:37.161061
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE TRAPP, dissenting: The judgment of the trial court should be reversed. In a confusion of business nomenclature, statutory regulation and •formal security arrangements, the issue should be examined in the light of the nature and quality of the structure as it existed at the time the complaint was filed. A mobile home is defined in Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 111½, par. 712.1 as: “ ‘Mobile home’ means a structure designed for permanent habitation and so constructed as to permit its transport on wheels, temporarily or permanently attached to its frame, from tire place of its construction to the location, or subsequent locations, at which it is intended to be a permanent habitation and designed to permit the occupancy thereof as a dwelling place for 1 or more persons, provided that any such structure resting on a permanent foundation, with wheels, tongue and hitch permanently removed, shall not be construed as a mobile home’.” Paragraph 724 requires that a mobile home display a certificate of title on the vehicle as required in Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 95½, par. 3— 120. The vehicle described in the latter statute is defined as a “house trailer”. In paragraph 1 — 128 of the same chapter, a house trailer is defined as a recreational trailer equipped or used for living quarters. It appears proper to conclude that the statute contemplates both a degree of highway use and that the unit so registered is essentially an entity self-sustaining and providing living accommodations in itself. As in the statute, the courts have equated or held synonymous the terms trailer, house trailer and mobile homes and have described such as being designed as a highway vehicle. See cases cited, 96 A.L.R.2d 234. The record is clear that defendant purchased the building in two sections, each of which was transported separately and neither alone was capable of providing living accommodations within the statutory context of a “house trailer” or mobile home. So far as this record shows, the completed structure complies with the zoning and building codes of the municipality. It appears that the walls have studding of the usual dimensions and spacing, that the completed structure has a pitched roof covered with asphalt shingles purchased by defendant to complete the building. The owner was required to purchase aluminum siding to cover the 24 foot ends created when the two sections were joined together. The affixing of such siding would necessarily combine die two sections into a single entity. The record shows that in terms of construction, the building was a house built in two sections, albeit sold and delivered as personal property. While the respective sections were delivered by towing, the wheels and supporting rigging were not a part of the delivered units, but belonged to and were returned to the manufacturer. The fact that the structure was delivered on a series of wheels does not determine its nature. The testimony is that it was equally feasible to deliver such upon a low-boy trailer. The owner purchased and affixed to the footings and foundation three structural T” beams onto which the sections were lowered and affixed. Such beams were mortared into the foundation. The structure had no capability as a highway vehicle. Within the context of Town of Manchester v. Phillips, 343 Mass. 591, 180 N.E.2d 333, the structure was not built as a trailer or self-contained unit and was not built upon a chassis. Even if one disregards the added portions of the building which were built on site, there are no characteristics of a trailer or mobile home. It constrains credibility to conclude that upon completion the building was either structurally or legally a mobile home. Neither the fact that the structure was sold by a dealer in conventional mobile homes, nor that it could, in theory, again be separated into two sections, should be determinative of the nature of the structure as finally completed.