First Nat'l Bank of El Reno v. Sayler

• Decision Date: 04 September 1897
• Citation: 4 Okla. 408,1897 OK 131,50 P. 76
• Parties: FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF EL RENO v. F. M. SAYLER, as Assignee.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

1897 OK 131

50 P. 76

4 Okla. 408

FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF EL RENO v. F. M. SAYLER, as Assignee.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma

Decided: September 4, 1897

William H. Hightower was engaged in the mercantile business, and executed a mortgage including his entire stock of goods to the First National bank of El Reno upon the 27th day of October, 1893, which mortgage was withheld from record.

Afterward, and before the filing of the chattel mortgage and upon the 20th day of December, 1893, being insolvent, he made a general assignment of all his property not exempt from sale upon execution to F. M. Sayler, for the benefit of creditors. The assignee duly qualified and, accepting the trust, sold the property so assigned. Thereupon the First National bank filed its claim with the assignee and asserted a preference for the payment of its whole claim against the proceeds of the sale, demanding that it be paid as a preferred claim. The claim was allowed by the assignee, but upon appeal to the district court it was ordered that the payment should be distributed in equal proportions with the other creditors.

The case is brought here by the plaintiff in error upon exceptions to this ruling. Affirmed.

Syllabus

1. MORTGAGE--Personal Properly--Void When. Under the laws of this Territory, providing that a mortgage of personal property is void as against creditors of a mortgagor unless the original or an authenticated copy thereof be filed by depositing the same in the office of register of deeds of the county where the property mortgaged, or any part thereof, is at such time situated, if the mortgagor makes an assignment for the benefit of creditors prior to the filing provided for in the statute and before the mortgagee has taken possession of the property under his mortgage, the assignee will take the property exclusively for the benefit of the creditors and free from any preference in behalf of the mortgagee.

2. VOID--Creditors--Assignee. A mortgage void as to creditors, is void as against the assignee in trust for the benefit of creditors,

Baxter & Severy and Blake & Blake, for plaintiff in error.

R. B. Forrest, for defendant in error.

MCATEE, J.:

¶1 No question is raised as to the validity of the chattel mortgage between the parties thereto, and it is contended by the plaintiff in error that, inasmuch as the mortgage was good between the plaintiff in error and Hightower, and that the assignee took no higher rights nor better tittle than the assignor had at the time of the assignment, and succeeded only to the rights of the assignor, that it was valid and binding, notwithstanding the provision of the statute, that:

"A mortgage of personal property is void as against the creditors of the mortgagor, and subsequent purchasers and incumbrancers of the property in good faith for value, unless the original, or an authenticated copy thereof, be filed by depositing the same in the office of the register of deeds of the county where the property mortgaged, or any part thereof, is at such time situated."(Statutes of Oklahoma, 1893, § 3270.)

¶2 It is further contended in behalf of the plaintiff in error that, inasmuch as the execution of the...