Bankers' Finance Corp. v. Locke & Massey Motor Co.

91 S.W.2d 297, 170 Tenn. 28, 6 Beeler 28, 1935 Tenn. LEXIS 104
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 7, 1936
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 91 S.W.2d 297 (Bankers' Finance Corp. v. Locke & Massey Motor Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bankers' Finance Corp. v. Locke & Massey Motor Co., 91 S.W.2d 297, 170 Tenn. 28, 6 Beeler 28, 1935 Tenn. LEXIS 104 (Tenn. 1936).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Chambliss

delivered tbe opinion of tbe Court.

A motion to strike tbe bill of exceptions because filed too late must be overruled. Motion for a new trial was overruled by tbe trial judge on January 18,1985, and thirty days was granted for filing a bill of exceptions. Tbe same day tbe court adjourned tbe regular January term over to February lltb. An order was entered on February 13, as of February 11, nunc pro tunc, granting an additional thirty days for tbe filing of tbe bill of . exceptions. It was filed February 13. This was in time. Tbe fact relied on that a term of court for Giles county intervened between January 18 and February 11 is immaterial, in view of tbe express provisions of chapter 113, Acts of 1905, sections 1, 3, Code 1932, sections 9937 and 9939, that judges of tbe circuit and criminal courts may adjourn their courts over to a time subsequent to that fixed by law for tbe bolding of another court in tbe same judicial circuit, and that tbe i£two terms shall be and constitute but one term.” In Mullen v. State, 164 Tenn., 523, 51 S. W. (2d), 497, Mr. Justice McKinney *30 gave effect to this statute. State ex rel. Swink v. Mayo, 157 Tenn., 339, 8 S. W. (2d), 477, is not controlling, since that was a suit in chancery. Chancellors are governed by the Act of 1900, chapter 551, Code, section 9940', et seq., which contains no provision that the two terms shall constitute but one. This difference in the statutory provisions applicable to the circuit and criminal courts, on the one hand, and the chancery court, on the other, was apparently overlooked when the opinion was prepared in Southern Continental Telephone Co. v. Alley, 167 Tenn., 561, 72 S. W. (2d), 555. That was a circuit court proceeding, and the citation of State ex rel. Swinh v. Mayo, supra, was therefore inept. It results that the circuit judge, acting within the same term, in legal effect, of his court, at which he had overruled the motion for a new trial, had the power to change his original order and extend the time. Beiler v. State, 158 Tenn., 404, 14 S. W. (2d), 51.

This is a replevin suit in a magistrate’s court, brought by an Alabama corporation, to recover possession of an automobile, asserting claim thereto under a mortgage made and registered in that state, where the mortgagor and mortgagee reside, but not in Tennessee, to secure an indebtedness evidenced by notes duly transferred to the corporation by the original payee. The defendants, residing in Lawrence county, Tenn., were creditors of John R. Meeks, the owner-mortgagor of the car, and locating the car in that county, had levied an attachment thereon. The magistrate gave judgment for plaintiff, but on appeal the circuit judge reversed and dismissed the suit, sustaining the priority of the attachment over the mortgage. ■ i

*31 The ease was heard in the circuit court on the following written stipulation of facts:

“I. That the plaintiff, Bankers Finance Corporation, which is an Alabama corporation with its principal office and place of business at Florence, Ala., holds a chattel mortgage on the automobile, replevied by it in this cause, to secure an indebtedness, with a balance yet unpaid, of . one John R. Meeks, the mortgagor, evidenced by his note, executed with the mortgage, to the order of one W. A. Ellis, the mortgagee, on April 25, 1932, and which note and mortgage were, on June 14, 1932, duly transferred' to' plaintiff for value, before the dates of maturity of nine of the ten monthly instalments of the note, hut after that of the first instalment, and without notice of any defect. The chattel mortgage, signed by Jno. R. Meeks was legally registered in Colbert County, Alabama, where the contract or mortgage was made and where said Meeks resides. The execution of the mortgage was not acknowledged before a Notary or otherwise nor was its execution witnessed. The instrument was not registered in Tennessee.
“II. Subsequent to plaintiff’s acquisition of said note and mortgage, as aforesaid, an attachment which defendant Locke & Massey had sued out along with a Magistrate’s warrant against said Meeks for an unpaid debt for repairs and parts, was levied by defendant Sheriff Morrow on said automobile described in said chattel mortgage. Defendant Locke & Massey was given judgment, which remains unsatisfied, against Meeks in that ease for the debt against him, the car thus attached having been, within' a few days after levy of the attachment, replevied in this cause by plaintiff herein, the *32 Alabama corporation, to recover possession of the vehicle by reason of said note and chattel mortgage held by it.
“III. That since its acquisition of said note and mortgage the plaintiff, Bankers Finance Corporation had knowledge of, the fact that one T. D. .Meeks, Jr., a resident of Colbert County, Ala., was in possession of said car and made regular trips into Lawrence County, and other counties, in Tennessee, said Meeks, Jr., being engaged in traveling a territory in Tennessee and elsewhere; and of the fact that said car was in Lawrence County, Tennessee, in the possession of and for use by said Meeks, Jr., on one of such trips at the time of the levy of the attachment sued out by defendant herein, Locke & Massey. [Signed here by attorneys.]
“Plaintiff’s attorney does not stipulate that Bankers Finance Corporation has expressly consented to the above stated possession and use of said car by Meeks in Lawrence County or other Counties therein and elsewhere, but that said Corporation had knowledge of such facts and knew that T. D. Meeks, a person other than the purchaser and maker of their note, was so using the car and accepted at least one payment from him on the note, and there was no transfer or assignment by John R. Meeks to said T. D. Meeks of his interest'in the car, or assumption of paym'ent by T. D. Meeks of the note to plaintiff. [Signed here by attorneys.] ”

It appears from the foregoing stipulation that the mortgagor resides in Colbert county, Ala., and there made this mortgage, and that it was there “legally registered.” While it is not in terms stipulated that his automobile, which he thus mortgaged, was in Alabama at the time, we think this fairly inferable. Nothing to the contrary appears, nor is any defect in the mortgage apparent or *33 pointed out. A prima facie case is thus made out of a foreign mortgage entitled to priority.

Rejecting application of. the doctrine of comity, it was held in Snyder v. Yates, 112 Tenn., 309, 79 S. W., 796, 64 L. R. A., 353, 105 Am. St. Rep., 941, that a chattel mortgage executed- and recorded in another state embracing property then there, but afterwards removed to this state without proper registration here, did hot give the nonresident mortgagee priority over the lien of resident attaching creditors of the mortgagor. But, in the later case of Newsum v. Hoffman, 124 Tenn., 369, 137 S. W., 490, since followed in Hamblen Motor Co.

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Bluebook (online)
91 S.W.2d 297, 170 Tenn. 28, 6 Beeler 28, 1935 Tenn. LEXIS 104, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bankers-finance-corp-v-locke-massey-motor-co-tenn-1936.