Cerex Co. v. Peterson

• Citation: 212 N.W. 890,203 Iowa 355
• Decision Date: 15 March 1927
• Docket Number: 38057
• Parties: CEREX COMPANY, Appellant, v. CLARENCE PETERSON et al., Appellees
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Iowa

212 N.W. 890

203 Iowa 355

CEREX COMPANY, Appellant, v. CLARENCE PETERSON et al., Appellees

No. 38057

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

March 15, 1927

Appeal from Cerro Gordo District Court.--JOSEPH J. CLARK, Judge.

Plaintiff appeals from a judgment in favor of an intervener in attachment for the release of an attached automobile.

Affirmed.

Lowell L. Forbes and H. L. Leslie, for appellant.

J. C Robinson, for appellees.

MORLING J. EVANS, C. J., and DE GRAFF and ALBERT, JJ., concur.

OPINION

MORLING, J.

The question presented is the effect between buyer and seller of Section 4964, Code of 1924, declaring that, for the purpose of that chapter, title to a motor car sold shall not be deemed to have passed until the transferee has received certificate of registration and written his name upon the face thereof.

Plaintiff attached an automobile as the property of Peterson. Before the attachment was levied, Peterson had made a bill of sale to intervener, Madigan. The bill of sale was given as security, and was recorded. Plaintiff does not claim to be a bona-fide purchaser, but claims that, because of Section 4961 et seq., Code of 1924, the property remained the property of Peterson, subject to attachment for his debt. The specific provision relied upon by plaintiff is Section 4964, which was not complied with, and which reads:

"Until said transferee has received said certificate of registration and has written his name upon the face thereof, for the purpose of this chapter delivery and title to said motor vehicle shall be deemed not to have been made and passed."

It will be noted that the section contains the qualifying phrase, "for the purpose of this chapter." The section is in Chapter 251 of the Code of 1924, entitled "Motor Vehicles and Law of Road." The law in immature form was contained in Chapter 2-B, Title VIII, Code Supplement, 1913. That chapter was repealed by Chapter 275, Laws of the Thirty-eighth General Assembly, which enacted a substitute. Section 18 of that chapter contained this clause:

"Until said transferee has received said certificate of registration and has written his name upon the face thereof, delivery and title to said motor vehicle shall be deemed not to have been made and passed."

The title of this act was:

"An act to repeal Chapter 2-B * * * relating to the licensing and regulation of motor vehicles and to enact a substitute therefor and prescribing penalties for the violation thereof. "

Nothing is said about regulating the sale or transfer of title to personal property. That subject was provided for by Chapter 396 of the laws of the same legislature, the Uniform Sales Act. The two chapters passed at the same session of the legislature had different purposes in view, and obviously should be construed each as determining the law in its own field. The act now under consideration was a motor-vehicle-licensing and regulating act, and its provisions are limited to the requirements of that purpose. The next general assembly, in Chapter 159, Acts of the Thirty-ninth General Assembly, Section 10, clearly for the purpose of removing a possible misconstruction of the provision above quoted from Section 18, amended it by inserting after the word "thereof" the words "for the purpose of this act." The quoted provision then read as follows:

"Until said transferee has received said certificate of registration and has written his name upon the face thereof, for the purpose of this act delivery and title to said motor vehicle shall be deemed not to have been made and passed."

Thus the effect and reach of the limitation on delivery and passing of title were expressly limited to the purpose of that act, the purpose of licensing and regulating motor vehicles. The restriction on the passing of title not only had no reference to the rights of buyer and seller, as between themselves, but such rights were expressly excluded by the amendment. That limitation was carried into the present statute, Section 4964, as enacted by the fortieth...