Seaboard Commercial Corp. v. Leventhal

• Decision Date: 07 May 1935
• Citation: 178 A. 922,120 Conn. 52
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: SEABOARD COMMERCIAL CORPORATION v. LEVENTHAL et al.

178 A. 922

120 Conn. 52

SEABOARD COMMERCIAL CORPORATION v. LEVENTHAL et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

May 7, 1935

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; Edwin C. Dickinson Judge.

Action to replevy an automobile, by the Seaboard Commercial Corporation against Louis Leventhal and others brought to the Superior Court in Hartford County and tried to the court. Judgment for plaintiff, and the named defendant appeals.

No error.

Alexander Winnick, of New Haven for appellant.

Robert L. Halloran, of Hartford (Wilson C. Jainsen, of Hartford, on the brief), for appellee.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HAINES, HINMAN, BANKS, and AVERY JJ.

AVERY Judge.

The Geo. B. Wuestefeld Company sold an automobile to Thomas L Campbell under a conditional sales contract duly recorded in the office of the town clerk of New Haven. The contract and notes were assigned to the present plaintiff. Thereafter, and before Campbell had completed his payments, the car was attached by a constable, the defendant Louis Leventhal, in a suit brought against Campbell by Samuel Olmer. The plaintiff brought the present action to replevy the automobile from the attachment. The conditional sales contract was made part of the complaint as an exhibit. The only question involved on from the attachment. The conditional sales contract was acknowledge in accordance with the provisions of General Statutes, § § 4697 and 4699, so as to be valid as against, an attaching creditor.

In the conditional sales contract, the parties were described as follows: " This Contract, made this 9th day of August in the year 1934, between Geo. B. Wuestefeld Co., 190 Whalley Ave., New Haven, Conn., his or its successors, agents or assigns, hereinafter individually or collectively called Seller, and Thomas L. Campbell, 1923 Quinnepiac Ave., New Haven, Conn., hereinafter called Purchaser." It was signed " Seller Geo. B. Wuestefeld Co., (L. S.) By Geo. B. Wuestefeld Title Pres.; Purchaser Thos. L. Campbell (L. S.)." The acknowledgement, after the date and venue, was as follows: " personally appeared Thomas L. Campbell, Purchaser and Geo. B. Wuestefeld Co. by Geo. B. Wuestefeld, Dealer, signers and sealers of the foregoing instrument, and acknowledged the same to be their free act and deed and the free act and deed of Geo. B. Wuestefeld Co." Our statutes provide that conditional sales contracts shall be in writing, acknowledged before some competent authority, and filed in the town clerk's office in the town where the vendee resides, and that conditional sales not made in conformity with these provisions shall be held absolute sales except as between the vendor and vendee and their personal representatives. The statute does not prescribe the particular form of instrument by which conditional sales must be made. They may be made by instruments signed by the vendor alone, by those signed by both the vendor and vendee, or by those signed by the vendee alone. National Cash Register Co. v. Lesko, 77 Conn. 276, 280, 58 A. 967. No statutory from of corporate acknowledgment is prescribed in this state. Sanford v. Bulkley, 30 Conn. 344, 347. " It is essential that it appear from the certificate, when read in connection with the instrument acknowledged, that the acknowledgment is made on behalf of the...