Charles S. Martin Distributing Co. v. First State Bank

152 S.E.2d 599, 114 Ga. App. 693, 3 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. (West) 1086, 1966 Ga. App. LEXIS 895
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedNovember 29, 1966
Docket42161, 42162
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 152 S.E.2d 599 (Charles S. Martin Distributing Co. v. First State Bank) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Charles S. Martin Distributing Co. v. First State Bank, 152 S.E.2d 599, 114 Ga. App. 693, 3 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. (West) 1086, 1966 Ga. App. LEXIS 895 (Ga. Ct. App. 1966).

Opinion

Pannell, Judge.

Under the Act of 1962, approved February 27, 1962 (Ga. L. 1962, p. 156 et seq.) the State of Georgia adopted its version of the Uniform Commercial Code effective April 1, 1963 (Code Ann. § 109A-10—101). The Act approved March 22, 1963 (Ga. L. 1963, p. 188 et seq.) changed the effective date to January 1, 1964. The above section also provides that the Act “applies to transactions entered into and events occurring on and after that” date. (Emphasis supplied). Section 109A-10—102 provides: “Transactions validly entered into before the effective date specified in Section 109A-10—101 and the rights, duties, and interests flowing from them remain valid thereafter and may be terminated, completed, consummated, or enforced as required or permitted, by any statute or other law amended or repealed by this Act as though such repeal or amendment had not occurred.” (Emphasis supplied.)

It may be well to note that the old statutes as to transactions entered into before the effective date, are effective “as though such repeal or amendment had not occurred,” rather than as though the. Act (Uniform Commercial Code) had not been enacted. In so far as the present case is concerned this leaves the old statutes apparently controlling the prior transactions and the new statute apparently controlling the transactions under the Code, both the old and the new standing together. The conflict, if any, must therefore be resolved.

The specific repealer section (Code Ann. § 109A-10—103), immediately following, in part provides that “[t]he provisions *695 ■of the following Chapters of the Georgia Code of 1933 as amended shall yield to and be superseded by any provision or provisions of this Act which conflicts therewith: Chapter 67-1. Mortgages in General. General Principles. Chapter 67-11. Mortgages and Bills of Sale Covering Crops. In General. Chapter 67-13. Conveyances to Secure Debt. Chapter 67-14. Conditional Sales.” By the Act of 1963, supra, the above quoted portion of Code Ann. § 109A-1O—103 was enacted into a separate section (§ 109A-10—-103.2) entitled “Certain Code Sections Superseded in Part.” The provision here, when considered in connection with § 109A-10—102, obviously supersedes the chapters referred to only where a transaction entered into subsequently to the effective date of the Code is involved.

The first question to be determined then is the effect of these two sections on the bill of sale to secure debt of the First State Bank, and brushing aside for the moment ancillary questions, the answer depends upon whether or not the purchase of replacement inventory by the debtor and the attaching thereto of the security interest of the bank (see Code § 67-103, as amended) is a new transaction entered into between the bank and the debtor so as to require a “filing” under the Code to perfect the security interest therein as against subsequent security interests for which there is a filing under the Code. Appellant relies strongly on statements contained in Coogan’s Secured Transactions under the Uniform Commercial Code, Yol. 1, pp. 377, 378, which is as follows (with portions in brackets not quoted in the -brief): “In one-shot transactions like those traditionally covered by a pledge, conditional sales agreement or a chattel mortgage which does not provide for covering future property or future debt, the language of the section quoted above is clear; the old law continues to govern. [If, within the time the old law filing is good, the pre-Code security interest is to be discharged voluntarily by the debtor’s performance or involuntarily through realization on the collateral, the old law governs throughout. A harder problem arises when the old law filing ceases to be effective—e.g., the old law required re-filing at the end of three years, two and a half of which have already run when the Code becomes *696 effective. In many cases, as a practical matter, refiling under the old law has become impossible. Here one must impute some intelligence to the legislature by saying that as to refiling the new mechanics have been substituted for the old and a filing in the place designated by the Code continues the perfection of the old security interest. Some states have attempted to spell out this idea, with notable lack of success in at least one case.]

“But not all pre-Code security transactions are of the ‘one-shot’ conditional sale or simple chattel-mortgage type. Some pre-Code agreements provide for security interests to attach in the future when either new property or new debt is placed under the security arrangement. Here 9-102 comes into play— there will then be a ‘transaction’ which occurs after the effective date of the Code, and as to this transaction and any future transactions, the Code applies. [One can argue that since the Code does not say that each of the steps in 9-203, 9-204, and 9-303 must take place after the Code has gone into effect, a new Code security interest will arise automatically when new debt is created or new collateral is added.] In any event, once a ‘transaction’ occurs, a filing under the Code will be necessary [ (except where excused) and prudence calls for some kind of writing in which in effect the parties acknowledge that they are now operating under the new rules.]” We have no problem involving the lapse of the time for re-filing under the old law. Under the old law, in order to preserve the security interest as against third parties, a re-filing by affidavit was required once every seven years. See Ga. L. 1937, pp. 760, 761; Ga. L. 1945, p. 389; Ga. L. 1943, pp. 575', 576 (Code Ann. §§ 67-2504, 67-2505, 67-2506, 67-2507). We do not agree with the contention that the acquisition of new and additional inventory by the debtor after the effective date of the Commercial Code was a transaction entered into between the bank and the debtor so as to require a re-filing by the bank after the effective date of the Code in order to protect the bank as to subsequent security interest entered into and filed under the Code.

Code § 67-103 as amended provides in part: “A mortgage *697 or bill of sale to secure debt may embrace all property in possession, or to which the mortgagor or grantor has the right of possession at the time, or may cover a stock of goods, an inventory of merchandise (which latter term shall include materials, goods in process, and finished goods intended for sale, whether or not requiring further manufacturing or processing), or other things in bulk, but changing in specifics, in which case the lien of the mortgage or the title given to secure debt is lost as to all articles disposed of by the mortgagor or grantor up to the time of foreclosure, but attaches to the purchases made to supply their place, and, when expressly so stipulated therein, to other after-acquired additions to the original stock of goods, inventory of merchandise, or the other things in bulk originally mortgaged or conveyed to secure debt.” Under this Code section the instruments therein referred to create a lien or security title as to after-acquired property which attaches to the after-acquired property under substantially the same conditions as the Commercial Code now provides. See Section 109A-9—204.

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152 S.E.2d 599, 114 Ga. App. 693, 3 U.C.C. Rep. Serv. (West) 1086, 1966 Ga. App. LEXIS 895, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/charles-s-martin-distributing-co-v-first-state-bank-gactapp-1966.