Ragner v. General Motors Acceptance Corporation

• Decision Date: 14 October 1947
• Docket Number: 4885
• Citation: 66 Ariz. 157,185 P.2d 525
• Parties: RAGNER et al. v. GENERAL MOTORS ACCEPTANCE CORPORATION
• Court: Arizona Supreme Court

185 P.2d 525

66 Ariz. 157

RAGNER et al. v. GENERAL MOTORS ACCEPTANCE CORPORATION

No. 4885

Supreme Court of Arizona

October 14, 1947

Appeal from Superior Court, Maricopa County; Harold R. Scoville Judge.

Judgment affirmed.

Moore Romley & Roca, of Phoenix, for appellants.

Theodore G. McKesson and Thomas P. Riordan, both of Phoenix, for appellee.

Blake Superior Judge. LaPrade and Udall, JJ., concur.Note: Chief Justice R. C. STANFORD, having disqualified himself, the Honorable Benjamin BLAKE, Judge of the Superior Court of Graham County, was called to sit in his stead.

OPINION

Blake, Superior Judge.

This is an action of General Motors Acceptance Corporation, a corporation, plaintiff, against Helen Ragner, J. R. Dick and Joe Dick Motor Sales Corporation, a corporation, defendants (appellants herein), to recover possession of an automobile. A brief statement of the facts as stipulated is as follows:

On November 3, 1944, at Shreveport, Louisiana, one Bernace Lee Franklin, falsely representing himself to be H. J. Franklin of Kilgore, Texas, purchased the Plymouth Coupe automobile in question from Dixie Pontiac Co., Inc., for a consideration of $ 1,493.75, of which sum $ 629.75 was paid in cash and the balance of $ 864 by a note and chattel mortgage, payable in 12 equal installments of $ 72 each. The first installment was due on the fourth day of December, 1944. These instruments provided that the whole amount thereof should become payable immediately upon default of any monthly payment. The Dixie Pontiac Company assigned the note and mortgage to plaintiff corporation herein, and it was recorded in the Parish of Caddo, Louisiana, on November 9, 1944, as required by the law of Louisiana. It was also recorded in Gregg County, Texas, the true residence of Bernace Lee Franklin.

On November 3, 1944, Bernace Lee Franklin, representing himself to be H. J. Franklin, caused the car to be properly registered and licensed in Louisiana in the name of H. J. Franklin and obtained a registration card therefor. On the 10th day of November, 1944, Bernace Lee Franklin, still representing himself to be H. J. Franklin, presented to the Arizona Highway Department the Louisiana registration card and a bill of sale dated the same date, purportedly conveying the car from one Edward Williams of Leesville, Louisiana (who at no time had been the owner or in possession of said car), to H. J. Franklin. On the same day, the Arizona Highway Department issued its certificate of title evidencing ownership of the car in H. J. Franklin, free and clear from liens and incumbrances.

On November 14, 1944, Franklin, still representing himself to be H. J. Franklin, sold and delivered said automobile for a cash consideration to Joe Dick Motor Sales Corporation, one of the defendants herein, and signed and surrendered the Arizona certificate of title.

On January 19, 1945, Joe Dick Motor Sales Corporation sold and delivered the car for a cash consideration to defendant Helen Ragner. On the same day, plaintiff learned of the issuance of a title in Arizona, and demanded of the Arizona Highway Department that it accept the Louisiana chattel mortgage for filing, which the department refused to do; whereupon plaintiff corporation filed said mortgage in the office of the Maricopa County Recorder. On January 22, 1945, the Arizona Highway Department issued a new certificate of title to defendant Helen Ragner.

It was further shown by the stipulation of facts that no part of the indebtedness remaining on the car after the down payment had been paid and that the whole amount thereof became due after default on the first payment of the note and mortgage, December 4, 1944.

It was also stipulated that the issues to be determined by the court were whether or not plaintiff was entitled to possession of said automobile; that the value of the car was fixed at the sum of $ 925; and that if the issues were determined in favor of plaintiff, plaintiff elected to take judgment against defendants for the sum of $ 925. Judgment was given plaintiff by the lower court for the sum of $ 925.

Appellants appeal from this judgment, basing their appeal upon a single assignment of error, to wit: "The court erred in finding appellee to be entitled to the possession of the automobile in question and in giving judgment to appellee for its value for the reason that the Louisiana chattel mortgage upon which appellee's claim of title was based, not having been filed in accordance with Arizona law, was and is wholly invalid against appellants as subsequent purchasers without notice."

There are three propositions of law submitted by appellants in support of their assignment of error, as follows:

"I. No chattel mortgage affecting title to any registered motor vehicle in Arizona is valid as against subsequent purchasers without notice until a copy of the instrument, executed in accordance with Arizona law, has been deposited with the Arizona Highway Department."

"II. Where a statute is plain and unambiguous, it is to be construed in conformity to its obvious meaning without regard to the previous state of the law."

"III. The established rules of law applicable to the subject are presumed to have been within the full knowledge of and considered by the legislature when enacting a statute."

Appellants admit in their opening brief that their assignment of error and first proposition of law fly squarely in the face of the 1928 ruling of this court in Forgan v. Bainbridge, 34 Ariz. 408, 274 P. 155, 157, to wit: "We therefore hold the law of Arizona to be in consonance with that of the great majority rule, to the effect that, when personal property incumbered by a mortgage valid as against a subsequent innocent purchaser in the state in which the property was located when the mortgage was given is surreptitiously removed to this state, the mortgagee may follow the property, and his rights are superior to those of a similar purchaser within this state, in the absence of a statute providing to the contrary." (Emphasis supplied.)

It is the appellants' contention, however, that the legislature of Arizona, in 1937 in passing a new motor vehicle law for the state of Arizona, did pass a statute to the contrary. In other words, the 1937 Act of the Arizona legislature did, by clear and concise language, abrogate the rule of comity as far as Arizona is concerned, as established in the Forgan case, supra, as it applies to chattel mortgages on motor vehicles, which statute now appears in section 66-231, A.C.A.1939.

It is the appellee's contention that section 66-231, mentioned above, refers merely to a motor vehicle registered in Arizona, and that the rule of comity applies to...