Crown Shade & Screen Co. v. Karlburg

• Decision Date: 08 February 1955
• Citation: 124 N.E.2d 238,332 Mass. 229
• Parties: CROWN SHADE & SCREEN CO. v. Walter KARLBURG and another.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 238

124 N.E.2d 238

332 Mass. 229

CROWN SHADE & SCREEN CO. v. Walter KARLBURG and another.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Norfolk.

Argued Jan. 7, 1955.

Decided Feb. 8, 1955.

Henry Gesmer, Boston, for plaintiff.

No argument or brief for defendant.

Before QUA, C. J., and LUMMUS, WILKINS, SPALDING and COUNIHAN, JJ.

WILKINS, Justice.

An unpaid conditional vendor of certain shades, screens, and combination doors (outside storm and screen doors), installed in a house in Braintree, brings this action for conversion against purchasers of these articles from the conditional vendee. The case was heard on an 'agreed statement of evidence' by the judge, who found for the defendants. The Appellate Division dismissed a report, and the plaintiff appealed.

The conditional sale contract was not recorded in the registry of deeds for Norfolk County. Both the judge and the Appellate Division thought that this omission was a violation of G.L. (Ter.Ed.) c. 184, § 13, as appearing in St.1937, c. 245, § 1, as amended by St.1943, c. 52, § 1, which reads in part: 'No conditional sale of heating apparatus, plumbing goods, ranges, buildings of wood or metal construction of the class commonly known as portable or sectional buildings, elevator apparatus or machinery, seats for theatres, halls, parks and places of public assembly, or other articles of ¹ personal property, which are afterward wrought into or attached to real estate, whether they are fixtures at common law or not, shall be valid as against any mortgagee, purchaser or grantee of such real estate, unless not later than ten days after the delivery thereon of such personal property a notice such as is herein prescribed is recorded in the registry of deeds for the county or district where the real estate lies.'

As first enacted, this statute covered the articles of personal property shown in the supplied italics. St.1912, c. 271. In a case arising under the statute as it then stood, this court held that iron staircases were not within its scope. In Babcock Davis Corp. v. Paine, 240 Mass. 438, at pages 440-441, 134 N.E. 342, at page 343, it was said: 'As we construe the statute, it has no application to stairways or to other materials except those specially mentioned in the statute or such as are ejusdem generis. * * * By its terms the statute is limited to heating apparatus, plumbing goods, ranges, and the words 'other personal property' must be construed to mean property of the same kind or of the same general description. Its purpose was not to give the owner of all kinds of personal property delivered under such an agreement the right of removal. It was limited to personal property of the same character and description as the articles specially mentioned, for if the general words 'or other personal property' could be construed in an unrestricted sense embracing the various materials unfinished or manufactured which enter into the construction of a building, no enumeration would have been made of the particular articles.'

The Legislature must be presumed to have known of that decision. Devney's Case, 223 Mass. 270, 271, 111 N.E. 788. Proprietors of Cemetery of Mount Auburn v. Massachusetts Unemployment Compensation Commission, 301 Mass. 211, 213, 16 N.E.2d 666; Gar Wood Industries, Inc., v. Colonial Homes, Inc., 305 Mass. 41, 47, 24 N.E.2d 767, 126 A.L.R. 591. The judge correctly ruled, as requested by the plaintiff, that shades, screens, and combination doors are not ejusdem generis with the classes of property described in the statute. Accordingly, unless the subsequent amendments, individually or collectively, have shown an intent to enlarge its sweep to include all articles of...