Court Opinion

ID: 9667910
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:57:32.589961+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:41.447708
License: Public Domain

COLER, Justice
(dissenting).
Certainly amercement is a harsh remedy but I do not agree with the majority opinion in its overly strict scrutiny of the statute based upon the conjectured effect that it may have on persons seeking office or on a bond premium for public officers. The issue in this case, as I see it, is whether the sheriff, or the holder of either a perfected or unperfected security interest, is entitled to make a determination, on advice of their common counsel as to whether the property sought to be levied upon under an execution is exempt or immune from levy. This issue revolves around provisions found in SDCL 15-18 and the interrelationship of that chapter to SDCL 57.
There is no question but what the judgment was properly entered and execution issued pursuant to SDCL 15-18. The property sought to be levied upon was subject to levy under SDCL 15-18-17 and to the extent the majority opinion deals with the collateral issue of effectiveness of the security agreement it is academic for it exonerates the officer who fails to make the levy only if the court later decides he was right in his belief that the security interest was perfected and covered the subject property.
The property sought to be made subject to levy is clearly available for that purpose under SDCL 15-18-17 which states that
“All property and interests therein and rights ap*480purtenant thereto, tangible or intangible, including shares or interest in any corporations, credits, choses in action, and whether capable of manual delivery or not, belonging to the party against whom the execution was issued, and not exempt by law may be taken on execution and sold or otherwise applied to the satisfaction of the judgment as provided by law.”
The cross-references under that statute, though doubtless not all inclusive, list some ten statutory exemptions created by law, only eight of which now remain by virtue of various legislative enactments. The effect of the majority opinion is to add one more exemption without foundation in law.
The majority opinion, quoting from the official comment of the U.C.C. § 9-402(5), states that the U.C.C. has refreshingly led us from a morass of “nit picking.” If to be rescued from this morass means that all property under the cloak of an ostensible security agreement is exempt to the detriment of all general creditors who pursue their claims to judgment only to be thwarted by a general lien filing covering all property of the debtor, it hardly strikes one as being refreshing.
The legislature of this state did not adopt the provisions of U.C.C. § 10-1031 which would have, had it been enacted, repealed all laws in conflict with the U.C.C. and would have brought about not one code of laws of this state but two. By the adoption of what is now designated as SDCL 2-16-13, as last amended by Section 1 of Chapter 29 of the Session Laws of 1976, our laws are one code and no title is an island to be construed apart from the remainder of the code. I would hold that the sheriff was bound to proceed pursuant to SDCL 15-18-17. As was pointed out by appellant, *481prior provisions of law set forth in SDC 39.04142 did provide for the protection of the judgment creditor and the lienholder while making property subject to a chattel mortgage available to execution. Under those provisions there was no need to state exemptions or weigh relative priorities of liens. A search of the index of the U.C.C. does not reveal any sections which offset the provisions of SDCL 15-18-30 which reads as follows:
“When the officer has made a levy upon any personal property pursuant to the provisions of this code, he shall have a lien thereon for all purposes essential to carrying out the execution, but no execution shall constitute any lien upon personal property until an actual levy upon such property has been made thereunder.”
Indeed, this statutory lien is of a type not governed by Art. 9 of the U.C.C. See § 9-102(2), SDCL 57-35-3. Had the sheriff made the levy and made an inventory as required under SDCL 15-18 and sold the property and deposited the proceeds in court there would have been ample opportunity and a forum for judicial determination of the issue of perfection of the lien as was considered by the majority opinion and, perhaps, also whether the provisions of SDCL 57-37-47 through 57-37-52 applied to the meat products found in possession of Upton, Inc. The record before us does not reflect the use to which these products were put or whether it was appellant’s products which were in the truck which respondent refused to levy upon. To intimate, as does the majority opinion, that the attorney for the judgment creditor failed to do something that he should have done is, in my opinion, not *482justified upon the record.
I would reverse the judgment of the trial court and thus not render meaningless the amercement statutes found in SDCL 15-21 or the provisions of SDCL 15-18 providing for execution. I would leave the legislature its prerogative of specifically exempting from execution and levy property subject to a security interest if it is their intention to do so.3

. The recommended provision of the U.C.C. for general repeal reads as follows:
“§ 10-103. General Repealer.
Except as provided in the following section, all acts and parts of acts inconsistent with this Act are hereby repealed.”
The “following section” referred to in the above section, being § 10-104 relating to bailment and to the Uniform Act for the Simplification of Fiduciary Security Transfers, has no bearing to the issues here and is therefore not set forth.

. SDC 1939 39.0414 which was repealed, along with the rest of SDC 1939 Ch. 39.04, by section 10-102, Chapter 150, Session Laws of 1966, read as follows:
“59.0414. Attachment or execution on mortgaged property: rights of mortgagee; proceeds sale. Personal property mortgaged may be taken under attachment or execution issued at the suit of a creditor of a mortgagor. Before the property is so taken, the officer must pay or tender to the mortgagee or his successor in interest the amount of the mortgage debt and interest, or must deposit the amount thereof with the county treasurer, payable to the order of the mortgagee. When the property thus taken is sold under process, the officer must apply the proceeds of the sale as follows:
(1) To repayment of the sum paid on the mortgage with interest from date of such payment; and
(2) The balance, if any, in like manner as the proceeds of sales under execution are applied in other cases.”

. Certainly, among the considerations of compatible law would be the lack of protection for the holder of a security interest under the current provisions governing proceeds of an execution sale under SDCL 15-19-35 hereafter set forth.
“15-19-35. It shall be the duty of every officer or person who conducts an execution sale to apply the proceeds of such sale:
(1) To the payment of the costs and expenses of the sale;
(2) To the satisfaction of the execution under which the sale is made;
(3) To the satisfaction of any other execution in his hands, to which such proceeds may be lawfully applied;
(4) To pay the surplus, if any, to the defendant, or into court for the use of the defendant or the person entitled thereto, subject to the order of the court. If such surplus or any part thereof shall remain in the court for the term of three months without being applied for, the court may direct the same to be put out at interest for the benefit of the defendant, his representatives or assigns, subject to the order of the court.”