Court Opinion

ID: 9579093
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:51:23.139374+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:34:16.615100
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The movants cite Nash Loan Co. v. Yonge, 182 Ga. 672 (186 S. E. 811) as being contrary to our ruling. The Supreme Court did not rule in that case that Davis v. Aetna Acceptance Co., 293 U.S. 328, supra, was not controlling. The court further held that the demurrer to the petition should have been sustained because the bankrupt failed to plead his discharge in the suit pending against him.
The contention that our ruling takes away from the movant the special lien of his money judgment is obviously without merit because our decision specifically states that a money judgment in trover is dischargeable insofar as it has no application to the specific property upon which the lien of the judgment may attach. A brief for parties at interest not parties to the record very strongly urges that the ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States in the Davis case, supra, is not controlling for the reason that the action in trover in Illinois, which was involved in the Davis case, is different from a trover action in Georgia. We face this issue squarely, as there is a difference between an Illinois trover action and a Georgia trover action. However, to- our minds there is no difference in principle in the *828application of the bankruptcy law to both classes of cases. In Illinois a trover action is designed to afford a money judgment for the conversion of goods which cannot be recovered. In Georgia trover is a combination of trover, detinue and replevin. The provision in the Georgia law for the election of a money judgment, in so far as it does not affect the property itself, is the equivalent of permitting the plaintiff to elect to have his action proceed as a common-law trover action. The purpose and philosophy of the bankruptcy act is to provide for the discharge of all provable debts not coming within the exceptions stated in the law. The debt in this case was without question a provable one, a note and bill of sale. The judgment against the bankrupt over and beyond the right to subject the property is so clearly within the purview of the bankruptcy act, unless it comes within an exception, that it is indeed puzzling how the Georgia courts got completely out of step. The best answer we can give is that the decision in Berry v. Jacks.on, 115 Ga. 196 (41 S. E. 698, 90 Am. St. R. 102) has not been correctly interpreted.' In our opinion that decision is based on two propositions, (1) there was no security transaction -involved, and (2) there was no showing that the bankruptcy proceedings were ever brought to the notice of the plaintiff. So far as the record in that case showed, the defendant might have had possession of the horse at the time of the trial of the case. If the above case had involved an action in trover based on a bill of sale to secure debt we doubt whether Georgia decisions would ever have varied from the prevailing thought on the subject. It certainly does not appear that the obligation sought to be discharged existed at the time of the adjudication. In the instant case it did exist at such time.

Rehearing denied.