Baldwin v. Hill

• Decision Date: 01 June 1896
• Docket Number: 121
• Citation: 46 P. 329,4 Kan.App. 168
• Parties: D. H. BALDWIN et al. v. FRED T. HILL et al
• Court: Kansas Court of Appeals

46 P. 329

4 Kan.App. 168

D. H. BALDWIN et al. v. FRED T. HILL et al

No. 121

Court of Appeals of Kansas, Northern Department, Eastern Division

June 1, 1896

Opinion Filed October 15, 1896.

MEMORANDUM.-- Error from Brown district court; J. F THOMPSON, judge. Action in replevin by D. H. Baldwin and others against Fred T. and Alice Hill. Judgment for defendants. Plaintiffs bring the case to this court. Reversed. The opinion herein, filed October 15, 1896, states the material facts.

Judgment reversed and cause remanded.

S. L Ryan, and R. F. Buckles, for plaintiffs in error.

Sample F. Newlon, for defendants in error.

CLARK J. All the Judges concurring.

OPINION

CLARK, J.:

This is an action to recover the possession of a certain piano. The findings and judgment were in favor of the defendants. The material facts connected with the transaction out of which this controversy arose, as disclosed by the record, are as follows: April 19, 1890, the plaintiffs sold and delivered to one J. B. Albaugh, at New Albany, Ind., the piano in controversy, under a conditional sale whereby the plaintiffs retained the title until the purchase price therefor should be fully paid. Some time thereafter, and prior to October 19 of that year, Albaugh, without the knowledge or consent of the plaintiffs, left the state of Indiana, taking the piano with him, and located at the city of Hiawatha, in this state, where, on November 2 thereafter, he sold it to the defendant Fred T. Hill for the sum of $ 200, the latter paying $ 100 in cash and giving Albaugh his note for $ 100, payable six months thereafter. The plaintiffs were ignorant of the fact that Albaugh had removed from the state of Indiana until after he had sold the piano to Hill, and they had no knowledge that the piano had been moved to Kansas until July 27, 1891. At the time of the sale to Hill there was due from Albaugh to the plaintiffs on the contract of purchase about $ 250, all of which remained unpaid on September 18, 1891, the date of the commencement of this action. Under the laws of the state of Indiana, a conditional sale of personal property wherein title is retained by the seller is valid not only between the parties thereto, but as to innocent purchasers as well; and the laws of that state at the time this contract was made did not require that the contract itself or a copy thereof should be recorded in any of the public offices of that state, and such continued to be the law of Indiana up to the date of the commencement of this action. The defense interposed by Fred T. Hill was that, as neither the contract nor a copy thereof was deposited in the office of the register of deeds in and for Brown county, Kansas, after the removal of the property to that county, and as he purchased the property in good faith, without knowledge of plaintiffs' claim, he acquired a good title thereto. Chapter 255 of the Laws of 1889 is relied upon as sustaining those views. Section 1 of that act reads as follows:

"SECTION 1. That any and all instruments in writing, or promissory notes, now in existence or hereafter executed, evidencing the conditional sale of personal property, and that retains the title to the same in the vendor until the purchase...