Court Opinion

ID: 6945832
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-24 01:25:30.729806+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:07:54.667627
License: Public Domain

Lockwood, Justice, dissenting: I cannot concur in the opinion of the Court, because I believe that where the motive for the sale or mortgage, is the security of the vendee or mortgagee, and the vendor or mortgagor is permitted to retain the possession and visible ownership for the convenience of the parties, it is a fraud, though the arrangement be inserted in the deed or mortgage. The policy of the law will not permit the owner of personal property to create an interest in another, either by mortgage or absolute sale, and still continue to be the visible owner. The law will not stay to enquire whether there was actual fraud or not; it will infer it at all events; for it is against sound policy to suffer the vendor or mortgagor to remain in possession, whether an agreement to that effect be or be not expressed in the deed. It necessarily creates a secret incumbrance as to personal property, when to the world the vendor or mortgagor appears to be the owner, and he gains credit as such, and is thereby enabled to practice deceit upon mankind. If the possession be withheld pursuant to the terms of the agreement, some good reason for it, beyond the convenience of the parties, must appear; and the parties must leave nothing unperformed within their power to secure third persons from the consequences of the apparent ownership of the. vendor or mortgagor. In support of my views on this subject, I have used the language of Chancellor Kent, commenting on the case of Clow v. Woods.(1) In that case the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania decided, that the delivery of the goods is held to be as requisite in the case of a mortgage of goods, as in the case of an absolute sale under the statute 13 and 27 Elizabeth, and that merely stating on the face of the deed, that possession was to be retained, is not sufficient to take the case out of the statute, even in the case of a mortgage of goods.   5 Serg. & Rawle, 277.