Court Opinion

ID: 9619527
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:29:18.843024+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:41.901228
License: Public Domain

Littlejohn, Justice
(concurring) :
I concur in the result reached by the majority opinion but on a different and more simple basis.
On June 21, 1973, the plaintiff-appellant obtained a judgment against defendant Howard P. Davis. On Friday, June 22, it was mailed to the Clerk of Court for Orangeburg County for entry and recording. Howard P. Davis owned real estate in Orangeburg County. The judgment was received by the clerk in the Monday morning mail and clocked-in as of “June 25, 1973, at 9:58 a. m.” It was placed in a drawer for entry into the index, but was never entered into the daily index.
A mortgage was executed by Davis and his wife that same day (June 25, 1973), in favor of First Federal Sav*396ings and Loan Association of Orangeburg. It was clocked-in at the clerk’s office at 11 :-S9 a. m., and entered in the daily index.
This action was brought by the plaintiff-appellant for the purpose of asking the court to determine the priority of the two liens. The lower court found that the lien created by the mortgage of the Savings and Loan Association was senior. The plaintiff judgment-creditor has appealed.
Section 30-9-40, Code of Laws of South Carolina (1976), provides in pertinent part as follows: •
“§ 30-9-40. Requirement and effect of indexing of instruments filed for recording.
“The register of mesne conveyances or clerk of court in those counties where the office of register of mesne conveyances has been abolished shall immediately upon the filing of record of any deed, mortgage or other written instrument of the character mentioned in § 30-7-10 [includes judgments] enter it upon the proper indexes in his office, which shall constitute an integral, necessary and inseparable part of the recordation of such deed, mortgage or other written instrument for any and all purposes whatsoever .... The entries in the indexes hereby required to be made shall be notice to all persons sufficient to put them upon inquiry as to the purports and effect of the deed, mortgage or other written instrument so filed for record, but the recordation of a deed, mortgage or other written instrument shall not be notice as to the purport and effect thereof unless the filing of the instrument for record be entered as required hereby in the indexes.”
■Compliance with this Code section is accomplished by the clerk’s maintaining a daily index and a permanent index. When an instrument is delivered to the clerk for recording, it becomes his duty under the statute to immediately enter the instrument in the daily index. It is then transferred, daily or regularly, to the permanent index. One of the chief *397purposes of recording an instrument is to give notice to any interested party. Indexing is a vital part of giving notice, and it is not until an instrument has been entered on an index that a recording has taken place.. There is no.notice to the public until such an entry is" made' on either the daily index or the permanent index. The following is taken from the transcript of record:
“JUDGE HYDRICK: But this judgment did not get on the day book?
“MR. WESTBURY: This particular one did not get on the day book.
“JUDGE HYDRICK: Did it ever get on the day book?
“MR. WESTBURY: Not to my knowledge. I would say it did not.
“MR! WITTENBERG ASKS MR. WESTBURY:
“Q. Mr. Westbury, this is a question I hate to. ask you. If it didn’t get on there, it was an act of omission of your office, was it not ?
“A. Apparently, it was an act of omission.
“Q. What you are saying in the normal course, it would have been put on that day book ?
“A. Yes, sir, may I say again that up until a few years prior to this, we only put deeds and mortgages. That would not be a reason not to put it on there in 1973.”
There is a moment at which an instrument becomes recorded. We hold that such moment is the time when the public has notice; the public has no notice until it is indexed.
At the time the mortgage was recorded and entered in the daily index, no judgment has been recorded.
The lower court should be
Affirmed.