S & W Motors v. Mack Trucks, Inc.

198 So. 2d 70, 1967 Fla. App. LEXIS 4737
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedApril 20, 1967
DocketNos. H-428, H-429
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 198 So. 2d 70 (S & W Motors v. Mack Trucks, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
S & W Motors v. Mack Trucks, Inc., 198 So. 2d 70, 1967 Fla. App. LEXIS 4737 (Fla. Ct. App. 1967).

Opinion

CARROLL, DONALD K., Judge.

In two consolidated actions to recover deficiency balances due under several conditional sales agreements, the defendants have appealed from final judgments entered for the plaintiffs by the Circuit Court for Escambia County.

The principal question presented for our determination in this appeal is whether the fact that the plaintiffs repossessed and sold the trucks covered by the said agreements from the retail buyer precludes the plaintiffs from proceeding against the defendants as guarantors of the alleged deficiencies.

Briefly stated, the basic facts established in this record are as follows:

The corporate defendant in these cases is S & W Motors, Inc., a corporation dissolved in 1964, which will hereinafter be referred to as S & W. The other two defendants, W. L. Wheeler and C. W. Smith, are sued as the surviving trustees of S & W, a dissolved corporation. Since the basic facts apply equally to Mack Trucks, Inc., a corporation, the plaintiff in one of the cases, and to Mack Financial Corporation, a corporation, the plaintiff in the other case, each plaintiff will hereinafter be referred to as Mack.

For a number of years S & W was a franchised dealer for Mack Trucks. The customary way of doing business was for S & W to enter into a retail installment contract with a buyer for the sale of a Mack truck. S & W would then assign its rights as the seller of the truck to Mack. As the distributor, S & W would also execute a guaranty of the buyer’s obligation, which guaranty is printed on the sale retail installment contract, along with an assignment of the contract to Mack. This guaranty provision, in which S & W is referred to as the undersigned and Mack as the as-signee, reads as follows:

“In consideration of the purchase of the foregoing Conditional Sale Agreement (hereinafter called the “Agreement”) by Mack Financial Corporation (hereinafter called the “Assignee”) and for other good and valuable consideration, the undersigned hereby unconditionally guarantees the performance of each and every obligation of the vendee in the Agreement, including the payment of all sums due and to become due from the vendee thereunder; and if the vendee shall default in the performance of any such obligations, or in the event of any other condition or occurrence by which the total balance remaining unpaid under the Agreement becomes, or at the option of the holder of the Agreement may become, immediately due and payable, then the undersigned shall upon demand immediately pay to the Assignee all sums due and to become due under the Agreement, upon the payment of which sums the Agreement shall be reassigned by the Assignee to the undersigned without warranty and without recourse.
“The Assignee shall be under no obligation to the undersigned to take any steps whatever toward the enforcement [72]*72of the Agreement against the Vendee or against the property covered by the Agreement. If the Assignee chooses to and does repossess the property covered by the Agreement, the undersigned shall pay to the Assignee immediately upon demand any deficiency or balance that may be due under the Agreement and/or by law after crediting the proceeds of the sale of said property, less the expenses of retaking, storing and selling the property, including attorney’s fees and the cost of repairs and other reasonable costs of preparing the property for sale, as specified in the Agreement.
• “The undersigned agrees that no waiver or variation of any of the terms of the Agreement,- including any extension of payment of sums due thereunder, will affect the liability of the undersigned hereunder. The undersigned hereby waives notice of the exercise by the As-signee of any right under the Agreement, including notice of any repossession or foreclosure or the time and place of any sale. The provisions of this guarantee shall inure to the benefit of the successors and assigns of the Assignee.”

The truck sold under each of the retail installment contracts involved in the instant cases was directly repossessed from the buyer by Mack because of the buyer’s default in making the installment payments as agreed. Mack then sold the truck, and claims in these cases a deficiency against S & W under its above guaranty — the difference between the resale price and the balance due under the retail installment contract.

S & W principally contends in this appeal that when Mack thus repossessed a truck from the retail buyer, that action constituted an effective election of remedies so as to prelude Mack from proceeding against S & W for an alleged deficiency. S & W also contends herein that Mack had no right or power under the guaranty, quoted above, to sell the truck after repossessing it in order to establish a deficiency. In a third contention S & W invokes the general rule that a guarantor is released or discharged of liability when it appears that, by reason of some act or omission on the part of the creditor, the principal debtor has been discharged of his obligation without satisfaction thereof.

With respect to the first contention above, we recognize that the doctrine of election of remedies is firmly established in Florida. In Voges v. Ward, 98 Fla. 304, 123 So. 785 (1929) the Supreme Court of Florida held that a seller or his assignee cannot take back the property and then sue for a debt or a deficiency. This court has recognized that doctrine in many cases, including our decision in Rivers Body Factory, Inc. v. Lufkin Foundry, Fla.App., 146 So.2d 774 (1964). In this last case a manufacturer had sold certain trailers to a distributor, retaining a lien for the balance due. After the distributor leased the trailers to a third party, the manufacturer repossessed them from the said party. Later the manufacturer filed an action to hold the distributor liable for the purchase price of the trailers, but on appeal we held that the manufacturer had made a valid election of remedies.

The doctrine of election of remedies, exemplified in the Rivers Body Factory case, supra, would no doubt be applicable in the case at bar if the guaranty quoted above had merely provided that S & W would underwrite the purchase price of the trucks, but the guaranty provides substantially more than this, as we shall discuss below, so we consider that that doctrine finds no application here.

In considering this appeal it is vital to remember that the essence of the cause of action involved here is contractual in nature, so we must look to the-provisions of the guaranty agreement in order to determine the rights of the parties thereto.

Analyzing, then, the guaranty quoted above, we find in the first paragraph there[73]*73of a provision for the liability of S & W for the balance due if the buyer defaults on payments under the retail installment contract. In the second paragraph of the guaranty, however, reference is made to repossession of the property by the assignee, Mack, and the liability of S & W for the deficiency or balance due after crediting the proceeds of the sale of the said property less the expenses of retaking, storing, and selling the property. The third paragraph provides for the waiver by S & W “of notice of repossession or foreclosure or the time and place of any sale.”

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
198 So. 2d 70, 1967 Fla. App. LEXIS 4737, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/s-w-motors-v-mack-trucks-inc-fladistctapp-1967.