Scottsdale Discount Corporation v. O'BRIEN

543 P.2d 158, 25 Ariz. App. 320, 1975 Ariz. App. LEXIS 876
CourtCourt of Appeals of Arizona
DecidedDecember 10, 1975
Docket2 CA-CIV 1907
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 543 P.2d 158 (Scottsdale Discount Corporation v. O'BRIEN) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Scottsdale Discount Corporation v. O'BRIEN, 543 P.2d 158, 25 Ariz. App. 320, 1975 Ariz. App. LEXIS 876 (Ark. Ct. App. 1975).

Opinion

OPINION

KRUCKER, Judge.

This was an action by appellees and cross-appellants, Alan T. O’Brien and Barbara O’Brien (hereinafter “O'Brien”), against appellants and cross-appellees, Scottsdale Discount Corporation and Schenectady Discount Corporation. On a prior appeal, we reversed summary judgment for Scottsdale Discount and remanded for trial on the merits. See O’Brien v. Scottsdale Discount Corporation, 14 Ariz. App. 224, 482 P.2d 473 (1971). On remand the trial court denied all relief on O’Brien’s complaint and Scottsdale’s *322 counterclaims. The trial court also declared the amount of the balance in certain Dealer Reserve and Holdback accounts that had been established during the transactions between the parties. Finally, the trial court ordered that a judgment Scottsdale recovered against O’Brien in 1969 be satisfied by charging it against the Dealer Reserve account. Scottsdale now appeals from the entire judgment, and O’Brien cross-appeals from that part of the judgment declaring the balances in the Dealer Reserve and Holdback accounts. We affirm as hereinafter modified.

The operative facts are as follows. Scottsdale Discount Corporation was formed in Arizona in 1962 and dissolved in 1969. During its existence it was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Schenectady Discount Corporation, a foreign corporation qualified to do business in Arizona. When Scottsdale Discount dissolved, all its assets and liabilities were transferred to and assumed by Schenectady Discount. Since Scottsdale Discount’s dissolution, Schenectady Discount has been doing business in Arizona as “Scottsdale Discount.”

Scottsdale was in the mobile home financing business. This activity included purchasing conditional sale contracts on mobile homes and financing inventories for mobile home dealers (called “floor-planning”).

O’Brien and one O. W. Moore formed a partnership known as Mickey and Al’s Mobile Homes in November of 1964. The partnership commenced doing business as a mobile home dealership in Tucson. After a few months, O’Brien acquired all the partnership assets and liabilities and continued to operate as a sole proprietor.

From the start, Scottsdale financed the dealership’s inventory and purchased retail installment contracts generated by its sales activities. To secure the dealership’s obligations to Scottsdale, the parties agreed that Scottsdale would hold a portion of O’Brien’s share of the anticipated contract finance charges in a “Dealer Reserve Account.” Each time Scottsdale bought a retail installment contract from O’Brien, Scottsdale credited the Dealer Reserve Account with a part of the anticipated finance charge equal to five percent of the unpaid principal balance on the contract. The parties also established a “Holdback” account as additional security for Scottsdale. For certain contracts Scottsdale was unwilling to advance O’Brien the entire purchase price. In those instances the difference between the purchase price and the amount actually paid to O’Brien would be credited to the Holdback account. The balance of the Holdback account was to be paid to O’Brien at a later date.

The Dealer Reserve Agreement also provided that if O’Brien sold less than five contracts to Scottsdale during a calendar year the reserve accounts would be held until all payments on assigned retail contracts had been received.

From November 1, 1964 to June 30, 1965, Scottsdale bought approximately 70 contracts from Mickey and Al’s Mobile Homes and O’Brien. The terms of each sale included an undertaking by O’Brien to guarantee payment to Scottsdale of all sums due under the contract. In addition, Scottsdale and O’Brien entered into a “long-form guarantee” agreement at the commencement of their dealings, the legal effect of which is considered infra-.

Twenty of the contracts bought by Scottsdale went into default. In each case Scottsdale repossessed and sold the collateral for less than the balance due under the contract. Accordingly, Scottsdale counterclaimed in this action for the deficiency amounts based on O’Brien’s guarantee.

The trial court denied relief on the counterclaims, holding that Scottsdale had failed to comply with the statutory procedures for resale and thus could not recover on O’Brien’s guarantee. The court declared that the balance remaining in the Dealer Reserve Account must be reduced from $14,416 to $4,121, and that the balance in the Holdback account was $12,987.

*323 SCOTTSDALE’S APPEAL

Scottsdale first contends that a contract assignee’s violation of the resale provisions of the Uniform Conditional Sales Act, in effect in Arizona at the time this case arose, does not discharge the obligations of the buyer’s guarantor. Scottsdale accordingly concludes that even assuming it violated A.R.S. Sec. 44-319 et seq., in disposing of repossessed mobile homes, thereby precluding recovery of the deficiency from the ¶ buyer, it could still recover against O’Brien as guarantor. We think this contention is incorrect.

The general rule is stated in 38 Am.Jur. 2d, Guaranty, Sec. 89, at 1095:

“The guarantor is, as a general rule, released or discharged of liability where, by reason of some act or omission on the part of the creditor, the principal debtor has become discharged of his obligation by a rule of law, even though there has been no payment of the principal obligation.”

As it is stated in 38 C.J.S. Guaranty § 83, at 1253:

“The general rule has been applied in cases arising out of conditional sale contracts where the vendor, after breach, recovers the property under such conditions that the vendee is released; in such a situation the release of the vendee also releases one who has guaranteed the vendee’s performance of his contract.”

The text cites Commercial Credit Co. v. Phoenix Hudson-Essex, Inc., 33 Ariz. 56, 262 P. 1 (1927), as an example. In Commercial Credit the plaintiff periodically bought conditional sale contracts from the defendant, a car dealer. On one occasion, plaintiff bought a contract formed between defendant and one Applegate. Pursuant to the assignment, defendant guaranteed Applegate’s obligations under the contract. Applegate defaulted and plaintiff repossessed his car. Instead of reselling, plaintiff stored the car and shipped it to defendant. Plaintiff subsequently sued defendant on the guaranty. The court sustained defendant’s demurrer, holding that plaintiff’s failure to make a statutory resale of the car discharged defendant’s guaranty obligation. It stated:

“It is, of course, a well-recognized principle of law that the release of a principal debtor without the consent of the guarantor releases the latter from his guaranty.
******
Plaintiff having pleaded that it had parted with the automobile to another for a valuable consideration, under circumstances inconsistent with a statutory resale, it was in effect an allegation that it had elected to deal with the goods as its own property, and in such case, by the terms of section 23, supra, the buyer was discharged of any - obligation under the contract.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
543 P.2d 158, 25 Ariz. App. 320, 1975 Ariz. App. LEXIS 876, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/scottsdale-discount-corporation-v-obrien-arizctapp-1975.