Tague v. Guaranty State Bank of Drumright

1921 OK 212, 202 P. 510, 82 Okla. 197, 1921 Okla. LEXIS 236
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedJune 7, 1921
Docket10174
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 1921 OK 212 (Tague v. Guaranty State Bank of Drumright) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tague v. Guaranty State Bank of Drumright, 1921 OK 212, 202 P. 510, 82 Okla. 197, 1921 Okla. LEXIS 236 (Okla. 1921).

Opinion

ELTING, J.

This suit was originally begun in the district court of Garfield county, state of Oklahoma, by E. J. Cowles, plaintiff, against the Logan Oil & Gas Company, a corporation, defendant.

Cowles’ suit was for the enforcement of a labor lien against the defendant, and after-wards the Guaranty State Bank of Drumright filed an interplea in said cause, seeking to foreclose a chattel mortgage on 200 feet of 1514-inch pipe and 1000 feet of 10-inch pipe, of the value of $3,713, given the bank by the Logan Oil & Gas Company. The bank appears with the Logan Oil & Gas Company, a corporation, and E. J. Cowles in this appeal as defendants in error.

Afterwards Chas. L. Tague filed an inter-plea in the same suit, setting up a claim to the same property ask^d for by the first in-terpleader under a claim of being the owner and entitled to the possession of the same: he having turned the same over to the Logan Oil & Gas Company under a sale to them in writing, which he attached to his inter- *198 plea as Exhibit “A”; setting out the sale of certain pipe to'the said Logan Oil & Gas Company for the sum of $8,000; the said company haying executed, by S, D. Logan, notes to the said Tague covering the said consideration of $8,000, less $500 paid 'in cash at the time of the sale; alleging the notes were delivered to Tague and the bill of sale delivered to the Logan Oil & Gas Company, and that the pipe was delivered to the said Logan Oil & Gas Company by the said Tague; and alleging, further, that the title to said pipe was to remain in the in-terpleader, Chas. L. Tague, until the full purchase price, evidenced by said notes, was paid to the said Chas. L. Tague. Also alleged the interests of the other interpleader, the Guaranty State Bank of Drumright. Also alleged that the said Guaranty State Bank of Drum-right had actual notice of the contract between the said interpleader, Tague, and the Logan Oil & Gas Company.

The said Chas. L. Tague, interpleader,-after-wards filed an amended interplea, in which he sought to plead an oral contract as having been entered into by and between C. L. Tague and S. D. Logan, for the Logan Oil & Gas Company, whereby it was agreed that the title to the pipe should not pass to the said Logan Oil & Gas Company, until the purchase price was fully paid; contending that Tague let the oil company have the property under a bailment, and that the contract was not a contract of sale, but merely an executory contract of sale, and that the notes and the 'bill of sale were turned to John H. Perry, cashier of the First National Bank of Drumright, to hold in escrow, and when the Logan Oil & Gas Company paid the notes to John H. Perry, then he was to deliver the bill of sale to the Oil & Gas Company; and setting out the other allegations as set out in the first in-terplea.

To these interpleas the Guaranty State Bank of Drumright filed answers, denying the allegations of the inierplca, and the issue thus joined between the two interpleaders was tried before the Hon. James B. Cullison, sitting as presiding judge, a jury having been waived. On the 5th day of March, 1918, the court rendered judgment in favor of the Guaranty State Bank, decreeing that the said bank had a valid and subsisting lien on the property covered by its mortgage and foreclosing the same, and decreeing that Chas L. Tague take nothing in said cause.

Taigue has appealed the case to this court, and will be hereafter designated as plaintiff in error, and the Guaranty State Bank of Drumright will hereinafter be designated as the defendant in error, as the issue is between these two parties.

The question involved in this case is set out as declared by the plaintiff in error in his brief, on page 36:

“As has already been stated, the pivotal question in ;the case is whether the transaction alleged by the plaintiff in error and which is not disputed by the evidence, amounts to a conditional sale or a sale on condition. The court held the transaction to be a conditional sale as distinguished from a sale on a condition or an executory agreement for sale and in this committed, as we contend, his fundamental error. The transaction was not a sale, but a bailment with an option to buy, that is, a sale on a condition or-an exeutory agreement to sell, in none of which the title would pass until the conditions under which it was to pass should have been met.”

The defendant in error agrees, in its brief, that the pivotal question in the ease is whether the transaction between the plaintiff in error and the Logan Oil & Gas Company relative to the sale and.delivery of the pipe was a conditional sale Or was a sale upon condition and in the nature of a bailment.

The distinction between these two kinds of contracts as to the sale of personal property is a very narrow one. It appears; however, that under the laws of this state the distinction is recognized. The following Oklahomla cases discuss this distinction: Garrison v. Latham, 23 Okla. 599, 103 Pac. 609; Carpenter v. Mead, 60 Okla. 127, 153 Pac. 658; Brooks v. Tyner et al., 38 Okla. 271, 132 Pac. 683; Oklahoma Moline Plow Co. v. Smith, 41 Okla. 498, 139 Pac. 285; U. S. Supply Co. v. Andrews, 71 Oklahoma, 176 Pac. 967.

The distinction between a conditional sale and a sale upon condition, or an executory contract of sale, is that in the conditional sale the title to the property and ¡the right to possession passes to the vendee at the time of the transaction. Even though it may specify that the title is reserved in the vendor, and is upon condition that the title does not pass until the agreed purchase price is paid, the same constitutes a conditional sale; and in the event that the purchase money is not paid, as between the vendor and vendee, the vendor can reclaim the property and title will revest in the vendor; and in its nature it is what is sometimes in the law of real property called a fee conditional, and the condition not being complied with, title revests in the seller.

In an executory contract of sale, or a sale upon a condition, the title does not vest at the time of the transaction, but only vests' upon the happening of a future condition, and the vendee, in that case, does not hold the title of the property, but if in possession, his holding is similar to a bailment, lease, or rental. *199 Such last described contracts do not have tó be placed of record in compliance with section 6745, Rev. Laws 1910, and hereinafter quoted, in order to protect the vendor.

We think we are safe in saying in all cases of sale of personal property, where the property is delivered to the vendee and the purchase price is agreed upon and part of the purchase price paid or none of the price paid, but to be paid in the future, which contract of payment may be evidenced by note or may rest in parol and it being agreed that the title to the property does not pass until the full purchase price is paid, that such transaction constitutes a conditional sale. In all such contracts the title passes to the vendee at the time of the transaction and delivery of the property to vendee, but in case of default in the payment title revests in the vendor, he being entitled to repossess the property, and as against innocent purchasers and creditors of the vendee such a contract must be placed of record in compliance with section 6745, Rev. Laws 1910. See Garrison v. Latham, 23 Okla.

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Bluebook (online)
1921 OK 212, 202 P. 510, 82 Okla. 197, 1921 Okla. LEXIS 236, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tague-v-guaranty-state-bank-of-drumright-okla-1921.