Handley v. Harris

• Citation: 29 P. 1145,48 Kan. 606
• Parties: ALEXANDER HANDLEY v. GEORGE D. HARRIS
• Decision Date: 07 May 1892
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

29 P. 1145

48 Kan. 606

ALEXANDER HANDLEY v. GEORGE D. HARRIS

Supreme Court of Kansas

May 7, 1892

Error from Brown District Court.

The opinion states the case.

Judgment affirmed.

W. D Webb, and Grant W. Harrington, for plaintiff in error.

James Falloon, for defendant in error.

GREEN C. All the Justices concurring.

OPINION

GREEN, C.:

This was an action in replevin, to recover certain personal property claimed by the plaintiff below under a chattel mortgage duly executed and filed in the office of the county clerk of Richardson county, Nebraska, on the 28th day of July, 1886. The property was removed to Horton, in Brown county, some time in November or December, 1887, and sold by the mortgagor to the plaintiff in error, who had no knowledge of the existence of the Nebraska mortgage. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, and the defendant below brings the case here for review.

It is first urged that the district court erred in admitting in evidence the statutes of Nebraska in relation to chattel mortgages. We think this evidence was competent under the allegations of the petition. It was alleged that the plaintiff had a special ownership in the property replevied under a chattel mortgage duly executed and filed in the office of the county clerk of Richardson county, Nebraska; that at the time the mortgage was executed the parties were residents of that county, and the property was situated there; that by the laws of the state of Nebraska the county clerk's office is the proper place to file chattel mortgages, in order to impart constructive notice to third parties; that a chattel mortgage to secure promissory notes is good and imparts notice for five years after filing the same in the county clerk's office, without making any affidavit to renew the same. The plaintiff below had a right to show that the chattel mortgage was valid in the state where it was executed. "The law of the place of contract, when this is also the place where the property is, governs as to the nature, validity, construction and effect of a mortgage, which will be enforced in another state as a matter of comity, although not executed or recorded according to the requirements of the law of the latter state." (Jones, Chat. Mortg., § 299.) A chattel mortgage executed in another state should be given such effect as it is entitled to in the state where it is executed. (Blystone v. Burgett, 10 Ind. 28.)

The claim is next made that the court should not have admitted in evidence the chattel mortgage. The execution of the mortgage was not challenged by a verified answer, so that its introduction was immaterial.

It is further claimed by the plaintiff in error that the mortgagee knew that the property described in the chattel mortgage had been removed to Kansas in November or December, 1887, and that he permitted the property to remain there until the month of April, 1888, without claiming the same, and was therefore guilty of such laches as would bar him of all right to recover the property from an innocent purchaser for value, as the plaintiff in error claimed to be. We do not think that the mortgagee was guilty of such laches as precluded a right of recovery. The mortgage was properly recorded in Nebraska, where the parties resided and the property was situated at the time it was executed. The plaintiff thus obtained a title to the property, absolute or qualified, by the laws of another state, and was entitled to maintain and enforce his right to the property in this state. Where personal property has been mortgaged...