Townsend v. Southern Product Co.

• Decision Date: 16 January 1907
• Citation: 56 S.E. 436,127 Ga. 342
• Parties: TOWNSEND v. SOUTHERN PRODUCT CO.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

56 S.E. 436

127 Ga. 342

TOWNSEND v. SOUTHERN PRODUCT CO.

Supreme Court of Georgia

January 16, 1907

Syllabus by the Court.

An unconditional assignment of a note given for the purchase of personalty, wherein the seller retains title to the property sold until the purchase money is paid, does not extinguish the security, but carries it along, and the title retained by the seller becomes vested in the assignee until the purchase debt is paid.

The title of such assignee will prevail over the lien of a subsequent mortgage, and this result is not altered because the assignee bought the property from the original purchaser after the execution of the mortgage, and took a bill of sale thereto, with a stipulation that the title was conveyed subject to liens of record.

Parol evidence is inadmissible to explain a plain and unambiguous stipulation in a written contract.

Error from Superior Court, Clinch County; T. A. Parker, Judge.

Action by S.C. Townsend against one Snyder. Judgment for plaintiff on levy of execution. The Southern Product Company interposed a claim. Judgment for claimant, and Townsend brings error. Affirmed.

S. C Townsend, for plaintiff in error.

R. G Dickerson and Wilcox & Patterson, for defendant in error.

EVANS J.

This was a claim case. Townsend caused a mortgage fi. fa. to be levied upon certain personal property as the property of Snyder, and the Southern Product Company interposed a claim thereto. On the trial it appeared that the defendant in fi fa. was in possession of the property described in the levy at the date of the execution of the mortgage. The property was purchased by Snyder from Lewis Patterson & Co., who took from Snyder a purchase-money note wherein title was retained in the seller until the purchase price was paid. This note was recorded in the office of the clerk of the superior court of Clinch county on November 13, 1902. Subsequently Snyder mortgaged the property to Townsend, subject to the purchase-money note held by Lewis Patterson & Co., and this mortgage was recorded in the office of the clerk of the superior court of Clinch county on November 24, 1902. Afterwards Snyder sold this same property to the Southern Product Company, executing a bill of sale containing a clause to the effect that the title to the property was conveyed to the company "subject only to the liens of record in the office of the clerk of the superior court of Clinch county Ga." A short time after the purchase by the Southern Product Company of the equity of redemption in this property from Snyder, it paid off the purchase-money note held by Lewis Patterson & Co., and caused the note to be assigned to it. Upon this evidence the judge directed a verdict for the claimant, whereupon the plaintiff in fi. fa. sued out a bill of exceptions, complaining of the direction of a verdict, and of the rejection of certain evidence which the court excluded.

1. The rule, that where a vendor of land takes notes for the purchase money, securing their payment by reservation of title in himself, which notes he afterwards transfers without recourse, and without any transfer of the reserved title, to a third person, operates as a payment of the purchase money and extinguishes the interest of the vendor in the land, is not applicable where the subject-matter of the sale is personalty, and the assignment of a note given for the purchase money of personalty, where the title is...