Lynn v. Broyles Furniture Co.

• Decision Date: 19 December 1911
• Citation: 57 So. 122,3 Ala.App. 634
• Parties: LYNN v. BROYLES FURNITURE CO.
• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals

57 So. 122

3 Ala.App. 634

LYNN v. BROYLES FURNITURE CO.

Court of Appeals of Alabama

December 19, 1911

Appeal from Circuit Court, Cullman County; D. W. Speake, Judge.

Action by the Broyles Furniture Company against J. Lynn. Judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Reversed and remanded.

F. E. St. John, for appellant.

J. B Brown, for appellee.

DE GRAFFENRIED, J.

The Broyles Furniture Company, in the latter part of the year 1906 and in the early part of the year 1907, made what may be treated in this opinion as two separate conditional sales of certain household furniture to L. D. Overstreet and wife. The sales were made in Jefferson county, where Mr. and Mrs Overstreet then resided, and were evidenced by two instruments in writing by which the title to the property was to remain in the Broyles Furniture Company until the purchase money was paid. Mr. and Mrs. Overstreet were put in possession of the property in Jefferson county and remained in its possession in said county until the fall of 1907, when they moved to Cullman county and took with them, with the knowledge of the Broyles Furniture Company the said personal property. They remained in Cullman county until the latter part of 1907, when they left the state. While living in Cullman county Mr. and Mrs. Overstreet lived in a hotel of which the appellant was the proprietor, and the furniture involved in this suit was kept in the hotel.

There was evidence tending to show that from the time they came into the possession of the property until they removed from the state Mr. and Mrs. Overstreet remained in the possession of the furniture and held it in accordance with the terms of their written contract and in subordination to the title and rights of the Broyles Furniture Company, and that when they moved from Alabama they notified the Broyles Furniture Company of the fact of their removal, and that they had left the furniture at the Lynn Hotel in Cullman county, and that said company could get it there.

On the other hand the appellant, J. Lynn, offered to prove that on or about the 10th day of January, 1908, he, for value and without notice of the claim of appellee to the property bought it from Mr. and Mrs. Overstreet, and that from that time the property remained in the hotel as his property and was used by him as such in Cullman county. In this connection he also offered to prove that the instruments evidencing appellant's title to the property were not recorded until after he had bought it and more than three months after its removal to Cullman county. The court declined to allow the appellant to introduce this evidence, and the appellant seasonably excepted to this action of the court.

This suit originated prior to the adoption of the present Code, and section 1017 of the Code of 1896, which we will hereafter discuss, was not applicable to Jefferson and Montgomery counties. Local Acts 1898-99, p. 1120. The two instruments evidencing the conditional sales by appellee of the furniture to Mr. and Mrs. Overstreet were therefore never recorded in Jefferson county, but they were filed for record and recorded in Cullman county in January, 1908, about 10 or 15 days after the time when appellant claims that he bought and paid for the property.

1. Section 1017 of the Code of 1896 requires all instruments evidencing conditional sales of personal property by the terms of which the vendor retains the title to the property, to be recorded within 30 days from their date in the office of the judge of probate of the county in which the purchaser resides and also in the county in which such property is delivered and remains. It also provides that if the property is removed to another county the contract must be recorded within three months from the time of such removal in the county to which it is removed. It further provides that such instruments, unless recorded as above provided, shall be void against purchasers for a valuable consideration, mortgagees and judgment creditors without notice. By the above-quoted act (Local Acts 1898-99, p. 1120), the Legislature expressly repealed the above section 1017 "so far as the same applies to Jefferson and Montgomery counties." Under the general law of the state, therefore, such instruments as those now under consideration were required to be recorded, but, under a local law applicable only to Jefferson and Montgomery counties, they were not required to be recorded in those counties.

The question then, simply, is this: Did the fact that a local law applicable only to that part of the state in which these conditional sales were made and in which the property was situated at the time of such sales exempted the instruments under consideration from registration in such part of the state so operate as to exempt them from the general registration laws of the state when the property described in them was removed from the county in which the sales were made to those parts of the state in which the general registration laws were in force? Was it the intention of the Legislature when it passed the above act repealing section 1017 of the Code of 1896, "so far as the same applies to Jefferson and Montgomery counties" to, in effect, repeal the provisions of our general registration laws as to conditional sales of personal property situated in Jefferson county and made in Jefferson county, and evidenced by...