Court Opinion

ID: 9795972
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:43:55.201724+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:43:18.997732
License: Public Domain

Justice EID,
dissenting.
The factual scenario presented in this case — where a third party obtains property through theft by fraud from the owner and subsequently sells it to a good faith purchaser — is covered by both the stolen property statute (§ 18-4-405, C.R.S.(2006)) and section 4-2-403 of the Uniform Commercial Code. Under the stolen property statute, the defrauded seller gets his property back; the UCC lets the good-faith purchaser keep it. We must decide which statute controls.
While I agree with the majority that the two statutes conflict, maj. op. at 1044-1045,1 disagree with its resolution of that conflict in favor of the UCC provision. “When statutes dealing with the same or related subjects cannot be reconciled, a more specific statute prevails as an exception to a general statute unless the general provision is the later adoption and the manifest legislative intent is that the general provision prevail.” B.G.’s, Inc. v. Gross, 23 P.3d 691, 696 (Colo.2001) (citing § 2-4-205, C.R.S. (2000) and Smith v. Zufelt, 880 P.2d 1178, 1183 (Colo.1994)). The majority finds that section 4-2-403 is the “more specific” statute in this case and therefore holds that the UCC provision prevails because it “addresses in detail several types of scenarios.” Maj. op. at 1044 (emphasis added). Indeed, I agree that Colorado’s version of the UCC covers the entire landscape of commercial transactions, from Sales, § 4-2-101, C.R.S. (2006), and Negotiable Instruments, § 4-3-101, C.R.S. (2006), to Investment Securities, § 4-8-101, C.R.S. (2006), and Secured Transactions, § 4-9-101, C.R.S. (2006). As the majority points out, our version of the UCC even includes a provision (one that was not in the model act) governing livestock transfers. See maj. op. at 1043 (citing § 4-2-403(1.5), C.R.S. (2006)).
But the comprehensive nature of the UCC actually goes toward showing its generality, not its specificity. See B.G.’s, 23 P.3d at 696 (noting that a particular statute was more general, and hence did not control, because it applied to a larger class of cases). The stolen property statute deals with one subject and one subject only: who gets to keep stolen property. And it does so in a single and quite specific sentence: “All property obtained by theft, robbery, or burglary shall be restored to the owner, and no sale, whether in good faith on the part of the purchaser or not, shall divest the owner of his right to such property.” C.R.S. § 18-^4-405.
It is true, as the majority points out, that the UCC was adopted by this state in 1965, and the stolen property statute was enacted more than a hundred years earlier as territorial law. Maj. op. at 1044-1045 & 1044 n. 10. Significantly, however, the General Assembly has revisited and made substantive changes to the stolen property statute on two occasions since that time. See 1973 Colo. Sess. Laws 536; 1987 Colo. Sess. Laws 668. In 1973, it amended the remedial portion of the statute to state that “treble damages and attorney’s fees shall not be recoverable from *1047a good faith purchaser or good faith holder of the property,” leaving the owner to recover only the property itself from the good-faith purchaser. 1973 Colo. Sess. Laws 536, 536. Fourteen years later, the General Assembly revisited the stolen property statute to allow the owner to recover at least two hundred dollars in statutory damages from the thief, and again amended the statute to make clear that recovery of the stolen property was the sole remedy available to the owner as against a good-faith purchaser of the property. 1987 Colo. Sess. Laws 668, 668.
While these amendments do not impact the theft victim’s retained ownership in the stolen property — ownership that has been recognized in Colorado since 1861 — they unmistakably demonstrate that the legislature has repeatedly considered the stolen property statute after the UCC was adopted. Thus, the stolen property statute is arguably the “later adoption.” At the very least, it is difficult to conclude from the legislature’s relatively recent attention to the stolen property statute that its intent was “manifest” that the UCC control the outcome in cases like the one before us today. See B.G.’s, 23 P.3d at 696; § 2-4-205, C.R.S. (2006).
The majority makes clear that, in its view, resolution in favor of the UCC makes for better public policy. As it points out, the owner is “better positioned to take precautions to prevent loss than a [good-faith] purchaser ... On the other hand, to place the onus on the good faith purchaser to fully investigate every purchase in order to determine whether it originated in fraud would unduly burden trade.” Maj. op. at 1046. That may be so, but it is for the legislature, not us, to decide. In the future, the legislature may very well expressly resolve the conflict between the two statutes in the UCC’s favor. Until it does so, however, we must look at what it has done up to this point, which has been to adopt and amend a narrow statute that particularly targets the very factual scenario raised by this case, and nothing more. Because I believe the more specific stolen property statute controls over the more general UCC provision, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s opinion.
I am authorized to state that Justice COATS joins in this dissent.