Mackie and Williams Food Stores v. Anchor Casualty Co.
| Decision Date | 20 October 1954 |
| Docket Number | No. 15060.,15060. |
| Citation | 216 F.2d 317 |
| Parties | MACKIE AND WILLIAMS FOOD STORES, Inc., a Corporation, Appellant, v. ANCHOR CASUALTY COMPANY, a Corporation, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Jayne & Jayne, Kirksville, Mo., filed brief for appellant.
Roy Hamlin, Hannibal, Mo., Sam Mandell and Popham, Thompson, Popham, Mandell, Trusty & Green, Kansas City, Mo., filed brief for appellee.
Before GARDNER, Chief Judge, and THOMAS and COLLET, Circuit Judges.
The Anchor Casualty Company issued its Comprehensive Liability Policy to which was attached its Automobile Liability Endorsement to Mackie and Williams Food Stores, Inc., a Missouri corporation with its office at Kirksville, Missouri. Under the policy and endorsement the insurer, Anchor, agreed to pay for any loss or damage by fire to any of the automotive vehicles and trailers described therein and to extend such insurance to any other vehicle to which the insured, Mackie and Williams, acquired ownership, upon notice of such acquisition. W. O. Mackie, of Kirksville, Missouri, held a judgment against Ray Farrar, of Little Rock, Arkansas, for a debt owed Mackie personally. Farrar went into bankruptcy, and at a receiver's sale held at Little Rock, Arkansas, January 23, 1952, Mackie bought in a large tractor and semi-trailer. Mackie had two businesses, one the Mackie Wholesale Grocery Company of Kirksville, Missouri, the other a retail corporation, Mackie and Williams Food Stores, Inc., (the insured herein), operating food stores at Memphis, Kahoka, Unionville, Milan, Macon, and Mexico, Missouri, and Bloomfield, Iowa. The Mackie Wholesale Grocery Company had advanced the money with which Mackie bought the vehicles involved at the receiver's sale. At the time of the receiver's sale, the Arkansas certificates of title to the vehicles were endorsed in blank and delivered to Mackie and R. F. Boyd of Joplin, Missouri. The vehicles were moved to the lot of Patton and Boyd at Joplin, Missouri, for sale, Boyd taking the Arkansas certificates of title with him to Joplin. No application for a Missouri certificate of ownership was made by Mackie. On March 15, 1952, the Mackie and Williams Food Stores, Inc., repaid the Mackie Wholesale Grocery Company the money the latter had advanced Mackie to purchase the vehicles, and it appears that on that date Mackie sold the vehicles to Mackie and Williams. March 17, 1952, Boyd was directed by letter to and did send the Arkansas certificates of title to the Mackie and Williams Food Stores, Inc. Mackie had obtained no certificate of title and transferred no Missouri certificate to Mackie and Williams. On March 17, 1952, the agent who had issued the policy of insurance to Mackie-Williams was called to the latter's office and advised that the insured had purchased the vehicles and wished to give the insurer notice of their acquisition in order to have them covered by the insurance. The agent advised the representatives of Mackie-Williams that the policy provided (and it did) that the vehicles were automatically covered for a period of thirty days without being endorsed on the policy.
The vehicles remained on the lot of Patton and Boyd. March 24, 1952, they were leased by Patton and Boyd, acting for Mackie-Williams, to the Tri-State Warehousing and Distributing Company, which was engaged in hauling explosives. That lease was executed in the name of Patton-Boyd-Ray Farrar as lessors. Farrar was the former owner in whose name the Arkansas certificates of title still stood. The vehicles were operated on the old Arkansas license plates issued to Farrar. On April 3, 1952, the vehicles were destroyed by fire, while the Mackie-Williams policy was in force.
The insurer brought this declaratory judgment action seeking a judgment that it was not liable to Mackie-Williams for the loss. Motion for summary judgment was made and sustained and judgment was entered that the policy did not cover the loss. While other issues were presented by the pleadings, the trial court based its judgment solely on the theory that because the Missouri statute relating to the transfer of title to motor vehicles was not complied with, Mackie-Williams had no insurable interest in the vehicles. Finding, as we do, that under the Missouri law the judgment is correct upon the ground it was based, it is unnecessary to refer to the other issues or the facts relating thereto.
The statutes of Missouri make the following requirements relating to the ownership and transfer of title of motor vehicles in Missouri:
It would be trite to elaborate upon the rule of Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S.Ct. 817, 82 L.Ed. 1188, that the law of Missouri must be followed.
The trial court deemed Craig v. Rueseler Motor Co., Mo.App., 159 S.W.2d 374; State ex rel. Conn. Fire Ins. Co. of Hartford, Conn. v. Cox, 306 Mo. 537, 268 S.W. 87, 37 A.L.R. 1456; Evens v. Home Ins. Co., 231 Mo.App. 932, 82 S.W.2d 111, and Mathes v. Westchester Fire Ins. Co., Mo.App., 6 S.W.2d 66, controlling. We find that they are controlling.
If Mackie operated or drove the vehicles he purchased upon the highways of Missouri, the law required him to make application for registration thereof. § 301.020 RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S. With the former owner's written permission it appears that he could have lawfully used the Arkansas license plates for a period of fifteen days. But that permission would not have excused him from applying for the registration of the vehicles in Missouri in order for him to perfect a transferable title. The record does not show whether the vehicles were operated upon the highways of Missouri during the time they were in the possession of Patton and Boyd, in Joplin, prior to the date they were leased on March 24, 1952. The inference is that they were not, as Mackie testified in depositions submitted on the motion for summary judgment that they were left on Patton and Boyd's lot for sale. Whether he operated the vehicles on the highways of Missouri or did not do so, it was clearly his duty under the Missouri law, as their owner, to apply for and obtain a certificate of ownership and transfer that certificate to Mackie and Williams at the time of sale to the latter. § 301.210, Paragraph 2, RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S.
The crux of Mackie and Williams' argument that failure on its part to obtain a certificate of ownership did not deprive it of having an insurable interest in the vehicles is that paragraph 4 of § 301.210 did not apply, because by the very terms of that paragraph it applied only to motor vehicles registered under the laws of Missouri.
If Mackie and Williams had been the original purchaser from the receiver in Arkansas and had obtained an assignment of the Arkansas certificate of title sufficient to pass title under the law of Arkansas to the vehicle registered in that state, the Missouri statute would not deprive the Missouri purchaser of a vehicle purchased in Arkansas of having an insurable interest in that vehicle until he had procured a Missouri certificate of ownership upon timely application therefor. Crawford v. General Exchange Ins. Corp., Mo.App., 119 S.W. 2d 458. But such is not the case. Mackie and Williams purchased from Mackie. The question, therefore, is whether Mackie and Williams became vested with an insurable interest in the vehicles by the transfer from Mackie to it of Farrar's Arkansas certificate assigned in blank. Otherwise stated, did Mackie have such title as he could convey to Mackie and Williams? For the same reason that Mackie and Williams would have acquired an insurable interest if it had received the Arkansas certificate direct from Farrar's receiver, Mackie became vested with such an interest upon receipt of the assigned Arkansas title. Crawford v. General...
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