Court Opinion

ID: 9573582
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:56:58.174165+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:41:56.831205
License: Public Domain

McDONOUGH, Justice
(dissenting).
In Heaston v. Martinez, 3 Utah 2d 259, 282 P.2d 833, this court held that where the purchaser of a car relied upon the in-dicia of ownership evidenced by mere possession by a retailer at his place of business he was protected and could prevail in an action brought by the negligent seller for the possession of such automobile.
In the instant case plaintiff bank was the assignee of a contract, assigned to it by George B. West, the wrongdoer. I had always assumed that such assignee took subject to such defense as might be interposed against the assignor, absent some equitable considerations which would estop the real owner of the property involved from claiming the same. Here the assignee of the title retaining note without so much as inquiring of the assignor as to the certificate of title, gives credit thereon. For if *140inquiry had been made the bank would have learned that the assignor of the note did not have the certificate of title. It might have learned that the certificate of title was on its way to the appellant bank attached to a sight draft, for the 'sight draft with the certificate of title attached was drawn upon the very bank which was the assignee of the title retaining note. The case of Heaston v. Martinez was decided upon the equitable principle that where one of two innocent parties must suffer for the act of negligence of the third person, the loss should fall upon the one who by his conduct created the circumstances which enabled the third party to perpetrate the wrong or cause the loss.
We are not here dealing with an action by the real owner against the innocent purchaser for value. . We are dealing rather with the action of a finance company, the assignee of the title retaining contract, attempting to recover against the real owner the loss occasioned by its own gross negligence. The bank was in no sense an innocent purchaser.
It is of interest to note that the judge who tried the instant case in the court below was the judge who wrote the prevailing opinion in Heaston v. Martinez. He clearly discerned the difference between the fact .situation involved in the former case and that here confronted. I would affirm the judgment.