Gen. Motors Ac. Corp. v. Whitfield
| Decision Date | 06 March 1934 |
| Docket Number | 7563 |
| Citation | 253 N.W. 450,62 S.D. 415 |
| Parties | GENERAL MOTORS ACCEPTANCE CORPORATION, Appellant, v. FRED WHITFIELD, County Treasurer of Minnehaha County, South Dakota, Respondent. |
| Court | South Dakota Supreme Court |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Minnehaha County, SD
#7563—Reversed
Bielski & Elliott, John P. McQuillen, Sioux Falls, SD
Attorneys for Appellant.
Walter Conway, Attorney General, Pierre, SD
Louis N. Crill, of Sioux Falls, SD
Attorneys for Respondent.
Opinion Filed Mar 6, 1934
On June 5, 1931, a Sioux Falls corporation engaged in the business of selling electric refrigerators commonly know as Frigidaires sold and delivered a Frigidaire to one Bessler upon an agreement of conditional sale, providing that Bessler should pay the purchase price thereof in installments over a period of months and that title and ownership should remain in the vendor until full payment of the purchase price, which conditional sale contract was duly filed for record on June 25, 1931. Plaintiff herein has now succeeded to all the rights and duties of the conditional vendor. On October 26, 1932, defendant, as county treasurer of Minnehaha County, issued a distress warrant against the conditional vendee Bessler for delinquent personal property taxes duly levied and assessed against said Bessler for the years 1925 to 1931, inclusive, and delivered the same to the tax collector of Minnehaha County, who seized and took into his possession the Frigidaire above mentioned and gave notice to plaintiff and to Bessler that he would sell the same on November 9, 1932, to satisfy the delinquent taxes of Bessler above mentioned unless the same were sooner paid with interest and costs. In order to prevent the threatened sale, plaintiff, under written protest, paid said delinquent taxes and instituted the present action to recover the amount thereof pursuant to section 6826, RC 1919, pleading the facts fully and claiming that said, Frigidaire was not subject to seizure and sale for the taxes in question. Defendant demurred to the complaint upon the ground that the same did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action, and from an order sustaining this demurrer plaintiff has now appealed.
Section 2191, Rev. Pol. Code 1903, reads as follows:
“All taxes assessed upon personal property within this state shall be a first lien on all personal property of the person against whom personal taxes are assessed, from and after December first in each year.
By section 2, c. 350, Laws 1913, the above section was amended by changing the date to “from and after January first in each year,” and as so amended the section is still in force, having now, become section 6759, RC 1919. In Minneapolis Threshing Machine Co. v. Roberts County (1914) LRA 1915D, 886, this court held that the tax lien established by the above statute was a paramount lien and had priority over chattel mortgage liens even though such mortgage liens were created and filed before the date fixed for the coming in of the tax lien. By J.I. Case Threshing Machine Co. v. Bentson (1930) the doctrine of the Minneapolis Threshing Machine Case was limited or qualified by holding that personal property of a delinquent tax debtor passed from his hands free of any lien for taxes, though apparently affirming the doctrine of the Minneapolis Threshing Machine Case to the extent of holding that the tax lien existed and was paramount and susceptible of enforcement as long as the tax debtor continued to own the property. In State v. One Pontiac Coach (1929) 224 N.W. 176, we held, and we think rightly, that a conditional vendor of an automobile was not the “owner” of said automobile within the contemplation of chapter 204, Laws 1925, providing that an automobile unlawfully used for the transportation of intoxicating liquor should be forfeited and sold “unless good cause is shown to the contrary by the owner.” In Massey-Harris Co. v. Lerum (1932) we held, in substance, that a reaper thresher conditionally sold and in possession of the conditional vendee on the taxing date for the year 1930 was assessable to him for 1930 tax and after January 1, 1931, was subject to levy and sale for all delinquent personal property tax of the conditional vendee for 1930, including, not only the tax levied against him by virtue of his possession of the reaper thresher itself, but all other personal property tax levied and assessed against him for the year 1930.
It is quite clear that the learned trial judge sustained the demurrer below on the authority of the Massey-Harris Case, and it is on that case that respondent relies on the appeal. There is, of course, a fact difference in the two cases. It is, we think, the law, as stated in the Massey-Harris Case, that property conditionally sold and in possession of the vendee: may be assessed against him in its entirety if the state sees fit to so do and the state is not obligated to take cognizance so far as concerns the matter of assessment of the division of interests in the property which the parties have undertaken to establish by the conditional sale contract. In the Massey-Harris Case the effort was to collect the delinquent personal property tax of the vendee for the single year 1930. For that year the reaper thresher had been assessed to him, and, properly so, we think, as part of his personal property and included in the total valuation of his personal property but apparently not separately itemized. In the instant case the attempt was to collect delinquent personal taxes of Bessler for the years 1925 to 1931, inclusive. The Frigidaire in question was not in possession of, nor assessed or assessable to, Bessler for any one of those years. The taxes assessed against him for each of those years became liens upon all his personal property on January 1st of each succeeding year, all of such taxes thus becoming liens upon all personal property of Bessler prior to his acquisition of the Frigidaire excepting only the tax for 1931. A distinction might be argued between the two cases on the ground that in the Massey-Harris Case the valuation of the conditionally vended property was properly included in the assessment of the tax sought to be enforced and that the state could not be compelled to collect the taxes piecemeal. See Jordan v. Baggett (1927) 37 Ga. App. 537, 140 S.E. 902. We do not believe, however, that any such attempted. distinction would be sound in principle, and we believe the present case must stand or fall according to the validity of the doctrine promulgated both expressly and...
To continue reading
Request your trial