Roosevelt Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n v. Crider

722 S.W.2d 325, 1986 Mo. App. LEXIS 5127
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedDecember 29, 1986
DocketNo. 14600
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 722 S.W.2d 325 (Roosevelt Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n v. Crider) 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
Roosevelt Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n v. Crider, 722 S.W.2d 325, 1986 Mo. App. LEXIS 5127 (Mo. Ct. App. 1986).

Opinion

ROBERT G. DOWD, JR., Special Judge.

Defendants, B.J. Crider, a/k/a Billy Joe Crider (B.J.), and Mary Ann Crider, appeal from a judgment in favor of Roosevelt Federal Savings and Loan Association (Roosevelt) in the amount of $2,322.51, with interest at the rate of 8 percent per annum from September 17, 1981, and $500 attorney’s fees. The judgment represented the balance due on a promissory note, executed by B.J. and Mary Ann, on which Roosevelt claimed it was a holder in due course.

The relevant evidence, and reasonable inferences to be derived therefrom, before the trial court can be summarized as follows. In December, 1975, B.J. was solicited at his home in Seneca, Missouri, by representatives of Exterior Products, Inc. (Exterior), and was shown several samples of their siding products. B.J. entered into a contract with Exterior for “rustic looking,” fiberglass siding, which carried a 35-year guarantee, to be installed on their home in Seneca and also their cabin which was situated on the shores of Grand Lake.

The siding was installed in December, 1975, when the weather ranged from 50 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and fell close to freezing at night. The installation took three to four days. On January 12, 1976, B.J. and Mary Ann executed a promissory note to Exterior for $7,728 carrying an 8 percent per annum interest and payable in 96 installments of $80.50. Under the terms of the note, the Criders were to make the installments payable to Exterior, but were to deliver the payments to the offices of Roosevelt. Exterior subsequently endorsed the note to Roosevelt.

Two to three weeks after installation, the siding buckled on both the house and cabin and pulled away from the structures. On the same day that B.J. discovered the defects, he notified Exterior by telephone. Within a month after the first complaint, B.J. made approximately 24 telephone calls to Exterior’s office. In January, 1976, B.J. went to Exterior’s office located in Spring[327]*327field “[t]o make a formal complaint,” but was not allowed to speak to anyone in authority. He made four trips from Seneca to Springfield to complain, but was never allowed beyond Exterior’s receptionist.

In April, 1980, the Criders filed suit against Exterior in Newton County, Missouri. Exterior filed a motion to dismiss, which was overruled by the court. The Criders stopped making payments to Roosevelt on the promissory note in September, 1981. In June, 1983, after receiving evidence, the Newton County court awarded the Criders a default judgment against Exterior for $10,000.

Roosevelt brought this action in the Jasper County Circuit Court to enforce the terms of the promissory note as a holder of the instrument. The answer asserted as an affirmative defense that the siding was a consumer good, thus protected by § 408.-405,1 and counterclaimed for a setoff.

A trial was had on July 31, 1985, after which the trial court requested the parties file suggestions as to whether consumer goods or services protected under § 408.-405 is applicable to exterior siding. Mary Ann did not appear at trial in person, but did so by attorney. No request was made that a default judgment be entered against her for failure to file responsive pleadings. Subsequently, the court entered judgment for plaintiff, finding exterior siding is not “consumer goods or services.” The Cri-ders’ motion for a new trial was overruled, and they appeal.

We reverse, and find exterior siding is “consumer goods” for the purposes of § 408.405. We remand to the trial court for a determination of the amount of damages sustained by the Criders for purposes of setoff against Roosevelt’s claim.

Sections 408.400-.415 have appropriately been called the Missouri Consumer Obligations Act in a law review article, Recent Developments: Commercial Transactions — Consumer Protection — Preservation of Consumer Defenses Under the New Missouri Legislation, 19 St. Louis U.L.J. 395 (1975), (hereinafter cited as Recent Developments). For the sake of clarity, we shall refer to these sections as the Act. Section 408.405 reads as follows:

The rights of a holder or assignee of an instrument, account, contract, right, chattel paper or other writing other than a check or draft, which evidences the obligation of a natural person as buyer, lessee, or borrower in connection with the purchase or lease of consumer goods or services, are subject to all defenses and setoffs of the debtor arising from or out of such sale or lease, notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary, only as to amounts then owing and as a matter of defense to or setoff against a claim by the holder or assignee; provided, however, with respect to goods only, the rights of the debtor under this section may be asserted to the seller at the address at which he did business at the time of the sale and must be so asserted within ninety days after receipt of the goods.

The Act was designed to limit the holder in due course doctrine in consumer transactions by preserving the rights of purchasers of consumer goods and services. A holder in due course traditionally takes free of all defenses that may have existed between the prior parties in the underlying transaction. Kraemer v. Leber, 267 S.W.2d 333, 339 (Mo.App.1954). The Act, therefore, places the consumer in a much stronger bargaining position by allowing him to retain the right to withhold payment until the seller performs. This provides incentive for the financer to align with the consumer to prevent the complaint from culminating in a defense to an action for payment of the note. Recent Developments, supra, 402-403, (cited as authority in Drew v. Chrysler Credit Corp., 596 F.Supp. 1371, 1376 (W.D.Mo.1984)).

The Act evidences a clear policy choice by the legislature to shift the risk of loss as to seller’s misconduct to the financer, emphasizing the ability of the financer [328]*328to conduct a more careful screening of the sellers with whom he deals. ■ Recent Developments, supra, at 403. This is especially true where the financer was initially involved in the credit transaction, as is the case here,2 and directly benefitted therefrom. Recent Developments, supra, at 403. The Act is clearly “remedial legislation,” Drew, supra, at 1376, defined as “[sjtatutes enacted for the protection of life and property, or which introduce some new regulation conducive to the public good....” City of St. Louis v. Carpenter, 341 S.W.2d 786, 788 (Mo.1961). Remedial statutes should be construed liberally to include those cases which are within the spirit of the law and all reasonable doubts should be construed in favor of applicability of the statute to the case. State ex rel. LeFevre v. Stubbs, 642 S.W.2d 103, 106 (Mo. banc 1982).

At the outset, we note that the author of a law review article, published soon after the Act became effective, used exterior siding as an example for application of the Act. Recent Developments, supra, at 406.

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Bluebook (online)
722 S.W.2d 325, 1986 Mo. App. LEXIS 5127, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/roosevelt-federal-savings-loan-assn-v-crider-moctapp-1986.