Talcott v. Meigs

• Decision Date: 08 February 1894
• Citation: 64 Conn. 55,29 A. 131
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: TALCOTT v. MEIGS.

29 A. 131

64 Conn. 55

TALCOTT

v. MEIGS.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Feb. 8, 1894.

Appeal from court of common pleas, New Haven county; Deming, Judge.

Action by Alvan Talcott, trustee, against George E. Meigs, for the conversion of an iron safe. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Reversed.

Henry G. Newton and Livingston W. Cleaveland, for appellant. Edmund Zacher and A. N. Wheeler, for appellee.

BALDWIN, J. Gen. St. § 3016, secures the title of a mortgagee, notwithstanding the retention of possession by the mortgagor, under a mortgage, duly recorded, of "any manufacturing or mechanical establishment, together with the machinery, engines, or implements situated and used therein." The plaintiff holds a second mortgage on a silk mill, together with machinery, engines, and sundry other articles of personal property, particularly described in the mortgage, as situated and used therein. Among these articles is an iron safe of moderate size and value. This the mortgagor, while remaining in possession, sold to the defendant, who took it for a valuable consideration, and without actual notice of the mortgage. The main question in controversy between the parties is whether the safe can be considered as an "implement," within the meaning of section 3016. The first statute respecting mortgages of manufacturing establishments was passed in 1832, and was restricted in its operation to the factory and its machinery. In 1837 (St. Ed. 1838, p. 74) its provisions were "extended and applied to the machinery, engines, and implements in and used by" the establishment At this date the word "implement" also occurred in our statutes, in the provision exempting from execution "implements of the debtor's trade" (Id. p. 63, § 74), and in that forbidding taverners from keeping in or about their houses "any cards, dice, tables or billiards, or any other implements used in gaming" (Id. p. 166, § 101). The first use of this term in the legislation of the state was in an "Act concerning executions." As given in the Revision of 1702 (page 32), the goods of a judgment debtor exempt from levy were "necessary apparel, bedding, tools and arms, or implements of the household which are for the necessary upholding of his life." Substantially the same words of description were retained until 1821, in the Revision of which year (page 56, § 74) they are replaced by these: "Necessary apparel, bedding and household furniture necessary for supporting life; arms, military equipments, implements of the debtor's trade," etc. It would seem from this change of phraseology that household "furniture" was deemed in 1821 to mean the same thing, in the language of the day, which household "implements" did at the beginning of the preceding century. The word "tools," for which in this revision was substituted the phrase "implements of the debtor's trade," was held by this court not applicable to "such implements only as are used by the hand of one man," but to cover, as respected printers, the printing press, cases, and types. Patten v. Smith, 4 Conn. 450, 454. In 1858 a statute was enacted, which declares that the provisions as to "mortgages of the machinery, engines, or implements, situated and used in any manufacturing or mechanical establishment, * * * shall be and the same are hereby made applicable to the presses, types, cases, stereotype plates, and copper plates of and pertaining to any printing or publishing establishment" Pub. Acts 1858, p. 41, c. 55. Apparently the legislature were in doubt whether the former statute as to chattel mortgages embraced printing or publishing establishments, and desired to bring them clearly within its operation, as regards the kinds of property which had been the subject of discussion in Patten v. Smith; thus declaring, in effect, that a printing or publishing establishment was to be regarded as a manufacturing or mechanical establishment, and that the presses, types, cases, and plates were machinery or implements of the business. In the Revisions of 1875 and 1888 the act of 1858 is incorporated into the main statute, and in so doing, the reference to presses, types, etc., follows the words "machinery, engines, implements;" but, in view of the history of the law, we do not think it is to be inferred that they would not otherwise have been included under the preceding terms of general description. The import of the term "implements," so far as trade or manufacturing is concerned, does not seem to have changed since the first settlement in Connecticut. In Cowell's Interpreter, which was published in 1637, it is defined as signifying ...