Court Opinion

ID: 9590499
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:55:31.351576+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:18.392347
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Chief Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur because the evidence does not demand a finding that receipt did not occur until installation was complete. The seller seeks to enforce the remedy provided by OCGA § 11-2-702 (2): “Where the seller discovers that the buyer has received goods on credit while insolvent he may reclaim the goods upon demand made within ten days after the receipt. . . .” In this article on sales, “receipt” of goods means taking physical possession of them. OCGA § 11-2-103 (1) (c).
Seller Eastman had a contract for sale and installation of some industrial equipment. It was one entire contract, not separate contracts for equipment and installation; it merely itemized the various components of the agreement, including a $5,000 charge for installation which was then credited as a discount. Seller was to provide installers and operator training. Did buyer Ottenheimer take “physical possession” before the machinery was fully installed?
Eastman claims “receipt” did not occur until June 28, when the final technician was at the buyer’s place of business and pushed the button to make the machinery operational. Eastman cites Fleming v. Runyan, 571 S2d 1213 (Ala. Civ. App. 1990), and In re First Software Corp., 72 BR 403 (Bkrtcy. D. Mass. 1987).
Ottenheimer, on the other hand, relies on Stone v. Nolan, 171 Ga. App. 644 (320 SE2d 781) (1984), and Cotton States Mut. Ins. Co. v. Gomez, 192 Ga. App. 76 (383 SE2d 567) (1989), although these cases do not include installation as part of the contract; they involved motor vehicles, so it is easy to see when “receipt” and “physical custody” occurred. Buyer also cites In re Rawson Food Svc., 846 F2d 1343, 1347 (11th Cir. 1988).
If “receipt” means when title passed, then OCGA § 11-2-401 (2) is relevant, i.e., “at the time and place at which the seller completes his performance with reference to the physical delivery of the goods.” Appellant says this did not occur until installation was complete but *661that even if this were not so, the parties had an express agreement that “receipt” would occur at that event because installation is part of the contract, so the contract “explicitly” provides “otherwise.”
I agree with what the majority author wrote in another case: “We believe uniform codes ought to be interpreted uniformly.” B & P Lumber Co. v. First Nat. Bank of Atlanta, 147 Ga. App. 762, 764 (2) (250 SE2d 505) (1978). But I find nothing directly on the point in issue here. In re First Software Corp., cited by Eastman, is the only case I have found interpreting the requirement in UCC § 2-702 (2) that the seller make a demand to reclaim goods within ten days after the buyer’s “receipt.” It involved a related provision of the federal Bankruptcy Code which also allows a seller to reclaim goods sold to a debtor by making a demand before ten days after receipt of such goods by the debtor. 11 USC § 546 (c) (1). The debtor had ordered goods from the sellers, which the sellers installed in the debtor’s warehouse. After the sellers completed installation and demanded payment, the debtor filed a bankruptcy petition.
The Bankruptcy Court held that the ten-day reclamation period began to fun upon the sellers’ delivery of the goods to the debtor, thereby rejecting the sellers’ argument that the period began to run when title passed to debtor upon sellers’ installation of the goods. In so holding, the court found it helpful to turn to the UCC for guidance. It noted that § 2-702 refers to receipt rather than title, that § 2-103 (1) (c) states that “receipt” means taking physical possession of the goods, and that § 2-401 states that each provision of Article 2 with regard to the rights and remedies of the seller applies irrespective of title to the goods except when the provision refers to such title. The court held that acceptance of the sellers’ argument would contort the plain meaning of the Bankruptcy Code and the cited UCC sections.
Eastman in its contract makes a distinction between “delivery” (which is arguably the seller’s side of “receipt”) and “installation.” Forty thousand dollars is due “on delivery” (which is one event) and payments are due to begin 30 days after “installation” (which apparently means another event). Payment of $50,000, approximately one-third of the purchase price, by “delivery,” would also indicate buyer was taking physical possession of the goods then, rather than not until installation was complete. In Fleming, supra, the seller was not entitled to payment until he installed the fixtures.
Under UCC § 2-401 (2), title passes to the buyer at the time and place at which the seller completes his performance with reference to the physical delivery of the goods “[u]nless otherwise explicitly agreed.” It also states that each provision of Article 2 with regard to the rights, obligations, and remedies of the seller and buyer applies “irrespective of title to the goods except where the provision refers to such title.”
*662Decided June 6, 1996
John F. McClellan, Jr., for appellant.
Shaw, Maddox, Graham, Monk & Boling, James D. Maddox, for appellee.
Thus it is clear that the seller completes his performance with reference to the physical delivery of the goods when he delivers the goods prior to completion of installation. Delivery is the other side of the coin from receipt.
Buyer was allowing this expensive equipment to be physically delivered and installed (and was using some of it with loaner parts which seller supplied) even in the month up until it turned all of its assets over to an assignee for the benefit of its creditors, because of its financial trouble. The seller first got word of the buyer’s financial collapse the same day its employees finished final installation. Now it all is available for other creditors, and the court must hold that the seller acted too late to reclaim it free of other creditors’ demands.