Court Opinion

ID: 9528095
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:36:59.62948+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:29.352894
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION
Royse, J.
I do not agree with the majority opinion on rehearing in this case. I believe our original opinion by- a unanimous court was based on sound principles of law and logic which have bec.ome firmly established *36in this State. LaPorte Discount Corporation v. Bessinger (1930), 91 Ind. App. 635, 171 N. E. 323; Guaranty Discount Corporation v. Bowers (1932), 94 Ind. App. 373, 158 N. E. 231 (Transfer denied) ; Nichols v. Bogda Motors, Inc. (1948), 118 Ind. App. 156, 77 N. E. 2d 905. It seems to me the majority opinion herein wholly ignores the rule of stare decisis.
As pointed out in the original opinion herein appellant was authorized under our law to retain the certificate of title until its debt was paid. I believe this provision was for the purpose of protecting the lien-holder from the type of fraud involved in this case. Having failed to exercise this right, it seems to me, under the rule announced in the above cases, appellant cannot prevail over the superior claim of appellee.
I do not agree with the majority opinion that the case of Community State Bank v. Crissinger et al. (1949), 120 Ind. App. 25, 29, 89 N. E. 2d 78, 80, supports their conclusion. In our original opinion in this 'case, this court, speaking through Judge Draper, in referring to that case, used this language:
“. . ., we said: ‘Our law neither requires nor expressly authorizes one lending money on the security of a motor vehicle to take up and hold the certificate of title until the lien has been discharged.’ The appellant isolates that language and relies upon it for a favorable result here. It is not applicable to the facts in this case. We were not there considering a conditional sales transaction which appears of record nowhere. We were dealing with the lien of a duly recorded chattel mortgage which was given by the owner of the equipment after the certificate of title had been issued to him. In that case it was not necessary for the owner of the equipment to obtain a new certificate of title as was the case here, and- the safe-guards available to the appellant in this case were not available to the creditor in that case.' It might be well to' add that, while it is true thé ' *37statute does not require or expressly authorize a chattel mortgagee to take up and hold a certificate of title until the lien has been discharged, it does impliedly authorize a chattel mortgagee to do so. Whether, under circumstances different from those in the Crissinger case, a chattel mortgagee might be held to be chargeable with negligence, was of course not decided in that case.”
I agreed with that statement then and I do now.
I believe the judgment of the trial court should be affirmed.
Wiltrout, C. J., concurs in this opinion.
Note. — Reported in 97 N. E. 2d 503.