Court Opinion

ID: 4720999
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2021-08-12 02:36:28.348788+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:07:38.530377
License: Public Domain

Hovey, J. (dissenting)
— I dissent. Morse, who held the legal title to the car and lived in Whatcom county, drove it to Island county and sold it to the appellant, who had full knowledge of Morse’s residence, although he had no actual knowledge of the mortgage.
The provision of the statute relative to recording should he given a rational construction. In the first place, it recognizes that there is a valid lien by virtue of the filing at the original situs of the property, and for a full period of thirty days after removal. In the second place, the original owner is not relieved from the obligation by the failure to refile. Now the purchaser takes his title and succeeds to all the rights of the original owner while the lien is in full force, and, of course, subject to the lien, of which he has constructive notice by the original filing. His position is fixed at the time of purchase. Can he contend for a compliance with a provision which can only be effective as against parties dealing with the property after the thirty-day period has expired and which cannot have any possible effect upon him? I think not. In construing this provision we must consider its object. It is notice, constructive it is true, but nevertheless notice. Of what avail is notice after the rights are fixed? To say that the mortgagee must file his mortgage to preserve the lien as against a purchaser who buys within the thirty-day period is to sacrifice substance to form.
*258As against the mortgage, the original situs of the property is not changed until it is kept in the new county thirty days. This simply imposes a measure of reasonable care upon purchasers of personal property in looking to the source of their title. The tiling in the new county is constructive notice to those who deal with the property after the expiration of the thirty-day period.
■ The opinion of the majority is likely to facilitate fraudulent disposal. The owner can transfer property into a neighboring county, dispose of it and return to his resident county, and after the property has been so hidden for thirty days, the lien would be lost.
The case of Davis & Co. v. Thomas, 154 Ala. 279, 45 South. 897, is squarely in point that the mortgage need not be filed in the county of purchase, and the reasoning of the case is equally applicable on the second point in this case. “It will not do to be governed uniformly by the literal expression of the statute, for by so-doing we should many times wander entirely from the obvious intention of the legislature.”
Appellants cite Turner v. Caldwell, 15 Wash. 274, 46 Pac. 235, but the property was purchased in that case after the thirty-day period following removal had expired.
In my opinion, the proper filing of the mortgage in Whatcom county preserved the lien for thirty days after its removal, and the purchase being made within that time, it was made while the car was subject to the lien of the mortgage, and the failure to subsequently file did not affect this transaction.
Mitchell, J., concurs with Hovey, J.