Court Opinion

ID: 9685362
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:34:12.802965+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:05.097877
License: Public Domain

WRIGHT, Presiding Judge
(concurring specially) :
I concur in the result of the opinion. However, I would not consider the fraudulent procuring of the Georgia certificate of title of any force and effect. The purpose of Section 9-103 is to provide rules for determining perfection and validity of security interests attached to various property which is transported from an original state into the forum state. Section 9-103(3) covers the usual rules relating to mobile personal property. Section 9-103(4) covers the unusual articles of personal property, such as autmobiles, for which the laws of the various states may require special indicia of ownership, to-wit: certificates of title. If the statutes of the state of the origin of ownership require not only a certificate of title but further provide that security interests attached thereto must be perfected by entry on the certificate of title, Section 9-103(4) removes the various filing requirements of the preceding sections of Section 9-103. The provisions of Section 9-103 contemplate legal transactions in the usual course of commerce. It does not contemplate the entry of fraudulent and illegal acts into such transactions. It appears to me that the securing of fraudulent or counterfeit certificates of title could no more defeat the validity of a duly perfected security interest than such acts could defeat the validity of the title itself.
The purpose of Section 9-103(4) is merely to give notice by providing a method other than the filing of a security interest as provided by Section 9-103(3). It-certainly was not intended to provide a loophole through which swindlers could pass and defeat a security interest legally perfected where it attached. If such were the case, security interests perfected in states requiring certificates of title, and which states provided for perfection by entry on the certificate, could be defeated by the securing of a fraudulent clean certificate in another state.
It appears clear to me that the certificate of title referred to in Section 9-103(4) *194is that issued in the state where the security interest arose and attached. A “clean” certificate fraudulently obtained subsequently in another state is not anticipated and cannot defeat the perfected security interest. In the case at hand Section 9-103(4) does not apply in any event, for the security interest of GMAC was not perfected by entry on a certificate of title. It was perfected by filing in Oklahoma and continued perfected - in Alabama for four months after the automobile was brought into the state. The securing of a “clean” certificate in Georgia had no effect.