MacK Motor Truck Corporation v. Wolfe

303 S.W.2d 697, 1957 Mo. App. LEXIS 609
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 18, 1957
Docket29503
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 303 S.W.2d 697 (MacK Motor Truck Corporation v. Wolfe) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
MacK Motor Truck Corporation v. Wolfe, 303 S.W.2d 697, 1957 Mo. App. LEXIS 609 (Mo. Ct. App. 1957).

Opinion

SAM C. BLAIR, Special Judge.

Confronting us is a motion to dismiss this appeal on the ground that it fails to comply with Supreme Court Rule No. 1.08(a)(3) and (d), 42 V.A.M.S., requiring the “points relied on” to show what actions or rulings of the court are sought to be reviewed and requiring those points to state briefly and concisely why the court was wrong. We are cited to White v. Nelson, Mo.App., 283 S.W.2d 926, and Thrasher v. Allen Estate, Mo.App., 291 S.W.2d 630. Due to the extraordinary circumstances of this case, we believe we ought not to apply this rule, whatever may be said against or for appellants’ points on this appeal. Any failure of compliance here does not require us, as it would have in the White and Thrasher appeals, and the decisions they cite, to search at large through a lengthy record to determine for ourselves what might be wrong with this judgment. For, unlike the White and Thrasher appeals, the present record consists of a mere twenty one pages and a quick and easy perusal of appellants’ points and this record dispels all doubt as to what actions or rulings of the trial court appellants want reviewed and why they think they were wrong. Obviously, then, the peculiar circumstances of this case do not present us with the burden the rule was adopted to relieve appellate courts from carrying, and since there is no reason for applying the rule, the motion to dismiss is overruled. This does not mean that the rule will not be enforced in other circumstances requiring its enforcement.

This is an action in replevin by Mack Motor Truck Corporation against John Wolfe, d/b/a Wolfe Implement 'Company, et al., for possession of a motor truck. The pleadings are not in question. The cause was submitted to the court without a jury on a stipulation of facts supplemented by undisputed evidence.

These facts are of relevance. On January 18, 1954, the Truck Corporation at Tampa, Florida, by conditional sales contract, conveyed to James H. Alvis, a Florida resident, a Mack truck. The contract secured the sum of $4,251.65 to the Truck Corporation. Subsequently, on April 14, a transfer agreement was entered between James H. Alvis, E. Crawford Jones, and the Truck Corporation, whereby Jones, a Florida resident, purchased the truck for $4,410.41 and assumed all covenants of Alvis embraced in the original contract. The original contract and the transfer agreement shortly thereafter were duly *699 Tecorded in the office of the Motor Vehicle ■Commission of the State of Florida and ■the lien created by the contract and the transfer agreement was endorsed on the certificate of title issued to Jones.

Later, on May 26, Jones took the truck to the Wolfe-Moody Implement Company at Palmyra, Missouri, where repairs requiring labor and parts were made at his instance. No claim is made that Jones ■notified. Wolfe-Moody Implement Company ■of the existence of the contract and transfer agreement and none is made that the latter had any actual notice from any source. Nor is there any claim that the'se instruments had been recorded in Missouri ,as provided by Missouri law relating to •conditional sales contracts. Section 428.-100, V.A.M.S.

Shortly after delivery of the truck for repairs, Wolfe-Moody Implement Company assigned all of its property to John Wolfe, R/b/a Wolfe Implement Company, et al., the present appellants. Subsequently, on July 14, Jones defaulted on the payments •due under the contract and transfer agreement and reconveyed the truck to the Truck Corporation at its request.

On July 28, the Truck Corporation notified Wolfe Implement Company that it held a conditional sales contract and transfer agreement against the truck and demanded immediate possession of it. The Implement Company asserted a right to retain possession of the truck under a common-law artisan’s lien for repairs and storage and refused to relinquish possession unless Jones or the Truck Corporation made full payment of its charges. The Truck Corporation filed a replevin suit, made bond, and took possession of the truck.

On these facts, the trial court ruled that the Truck Corporation’s contract and transfer agreement, recorded in Florida prior to the repairs, but not in Missouri, gave rise to a lien which took precedence over the artisan’s lien the Implement Company asserted against the truck. Judgment .was rendered for the plaintiff, Truck Corporation, on its petition to replevy the truck and against the Implement Company on its counterclaim for judgment for the amount of repairs and storage and for the return of the truck to be held by it until full payment was made. With all of the facts ■ conceded, the ruling of the trial court presents for our decision only the legal question of priority.

In 1890 Judge Ellison, writing for the Kansas City Court of Appeals, in Kirtley v. Morris, 43 Mo.App. 144, ruled that a Missouri artisan’s common-law lien for repairs made on a chattel took precedence over a prior recorded Missouri chattel mortgage. In 1894, in Stone v. Kelley, 59 Mo.App. 214, the Kansas City Court of Appeals reaffirmed this ruling. In 1895, in Lazarus v. Moran, 64 Mo.App. 239, this court recognized the priority of a Missouri artisan’s lien over a prior recorded chattel mortgage. Thereafter, the Kansas City Court of Appeals, in Birmingham v. Carr, 196 Mo.App. 411, 414, 197 S.W. 711, 712 [1-3], line 5, did the same.

“The artisan’s lien is supported on the theory that the value of the property has been enhanced by the labor and skill of the workman which has been put upon it, at least at the implied request of the owner. If an article of property left with the mortgagor becomes out of repair or unfit for the uses and purposes for which the mortgagor retains it, it may well be supposed to be within the contemplation of the parties that it will be repaired. And it has always been, and is now, well understood that people take such articles of property for repair to those who are engaged in such business, and who, from education and experience, are skilled in the business, and it is, therefore, quite a reasonable and natural implication that the mortgagee should contemplate this when he accepts his security, and that he should be held by the transaction itself to consent thereto. It is thus that the artisan rests secure in the certainty and validity of his lien.” Stone v. Kelley, supra, 59 Mo.App. 219.

Our research does not disclose any criticism of the Kirtley case, or other cases *700 cited, by any of our appellate courts. While outstate authorities are conflicting, an examination of them reveals that the Kirtley case and its prototypes are by no means unique. Blashfield, Cyclopedia of Automobile Law and Practice, Vol. 7A, Secs. 5162-5163; 61 C.J.S. Motor Vehicles § 746 b, p. 891; Idem., § 754 b, pp. 901-904; 14 C.J.S. Chattel Mortgages § 300, p. 939; 10 Am.Jur., Chattel Mortgages, § 215, p. 857; Idem., § 218, p. 859; 24 Am.Jur., Garages, Parking Stations, and Liveries, §§ 50-51, pp. 504-505 ; 33 Am.Jur., Liens, § 33, p. 436.

Nevertheless, the Truck Corporation contends that the enactment in 1915 of Sections 430.010-430.050, V.A.M.S., destroys the effect and force of these decisions.

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303 S.W.2d 697, 1957 Mo. App. LEXIS 609, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mack-motor-truck-corporation-v-wolfe-moctapp-1957.