Universal Credit Co. v. Citizens State Bank

64 N.E.2d 28, 224 Ind. 1, 168 A.L.R. 352, 1945 Ind. LEXIS 163
CourtIndiana Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 14, 1945
DocketNo. 28,135.
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 64 N.E.2d 28 (Universal Credit Co. v. Citizens State Bank) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Universal Credit Co. v. Citizens State Bank, 64 N.E.2d 28, 224 Ind. 1, 168 A.L.R. 352, 1945 Ind. LEXIS 163 (Ind. 1945).

Opinion

O’Malley, J.

The appellant brought this action against the appellee to recover conditional sale contracts or their value. The appellant is a corporation engaged in financing automobile transactions between the manufacturer and the dealer. In the instant case it entered into an agreement with the Tiffin Motor Company, Incorporated, of Petersburg, Indiana, an automobile dealer, by the terms of which it would furnish the money to purchase automobiles from the Ford Motor Company. In September, 1940, these parties signed and filed with the Secretary of State of the State of Indiana their “Statement of Trust Receipt Financing,” as provided by statute. See § 51-613, Burns’ 1933 (Supp.).

Prior to that time said parties had entered into two agreements, both of which were in writing and each of which set out the general terms under which they were to operate. One agreement covered financing where the title came from the Ford Motor Company to the dealer and one covered transactions where the title was transferred from the Ford Motor Company direct to the appellant. Each agreement concerned a method of “floor plan financing,” and under each agreement the *4 Tiffin Motor Company, Incorporated, would execute, in blank, a trust receipt and deliver the same to the appellant. In the instant case the Ford Motor Company sold direct to the Tiffin Motor Company, Incorporated, but in no instance was delivery made until appellant paid the invoice price and the trust receipt above referred to was • signed and delivered to appellant.

There are seven automobile transactions involved in this matter. In each of them the automobile dealer sold the car to an individual and received a conditional sale contract from the purchaser. Each of these contracts was sold to the appellee by the dealer.

The use of the trust receipt transaction is not new and decisions concerning the same have been pronouncd in numerous jurisdictions in the United States and Great Britain. Under the law applied to transactions of this kind prior to the adoption of the Uniform Trust Receipts Act various courts made rulings that have a value in showing the development of and necessity for this type of financing. See Barry & Hoogewerff v. Boninger & Lehr (1876), 46 Md. 59; 25 A. L. R. 332; 49 A. L. R. 282; 101 A. L. R. 453; 53 Am. Jur. 961; 22 Columbia Law Review (1922) 395.

The Act with which we are concerned was the result of the needs of merchants and dealers in handling products and,machines which are used and needed by the purchasing public. Although originally it was used exclusively in the importing business, the mass production of automobiles, trucks, and various labor saving devices has created a field for the use of loaning corporation facilities which could not be properly served without the creation of the statutory trust receipt.

*5 *4 In addition to filing with the Secretary of State, and thus avoiding a filing or recording for each trans *5 action, it likewise eliminates the necessity of searching a great mass of filed or recorded papers. This filing with the Secretary of State constitutes constructive notice of the proposed method of financing and any rights that may be acquired thereunder. The Act also provides that under some conditions the security lien of the entruster may attach to other goods and things of value that may be received from a sale in the regular course of trade.

In Donn v. Auto Dealers Co. (1944), 385 Ill. 211, 214, 52 N. E. (2d) 695, 696, it was said:

“The Trust Receipts Act is evidently the result of an effort to meet the needs of the business of financing the purchase and sale of goods on credit without the use of chattel mortgages, and without recording each lien transaction. The apparent purpose in permitting the filing of a statement by such financier and dealer is to have some method of giving notice to other prospective creditors that the former are doing business by the trust receipt financing method. The purpose seems to have been to retain the advantages of a security interest in goods by use of the trust receipt and yet to eliminate, as far as possible, both secret liens and the necessity of recording each transaction.”

See also C. I. T. Corp. v. Commercial Bank (1944), 64 Cal. App. (2d) 722, 149 P. (2d) 439; 9 Uniform Laws Annotated 665.

In those cases which developed prior to the adoption of the statute it seems to have been the rule that the receipt should issue from a third party and not from the one who ultimately did the paying. Some of the reasons for the rule, that it was necessary to come from a third party, were that to permit it to be otherwise might work a fraud on creditors, or the receipt might be rendered of little security value because of the recording statutes.

*6 Under the statute, § 51-601 et seq., Burns’ 1933 (Supp.), it is immaterial whether the third party conveys title to the dealer (trustee) or to the entruster, as long as there is an underlying contract outlining the terms to govern the transaction, the giving of new value, and the giving' of the instrument which conveys or transfers a security interest to the entruster, together with possession in the trustee for one of the purposes enumerated in the statute.

There are but few cases that have been decided under the Uniform Trust Receipts Act. One case that is in point is General Motors Acceptance Corporation v. Associates Discount Corporation (1942), 38 N. Y. S. (2d) 972. There the court held that the Trust Receipts Act applied and the car taken in trade was a part of the security, and that the note taken on the sale of the car was likewise a part of the security. However, on appeal this cause was reversed on the question of election of remedies. General Motors Acceptance Corporation v . Associates Discount Corporation (1944), 267 App. Div. 1032, 48 N. Y. S. (2d) 242.

In Peoples Finance etc. Co. v. Bowman (1943), 58 Cal. App. (2d) 729, 137 P. (2d) 729, the court was confronted with a situation where two firms were financing a dealer. The defendant financed a new car which was later sold and a used car was taken in part payment. He then took the indicia of title of the used car to the plaintiff and secured financing in exchange for a trust receipt. Defendant did not request an accounting, but filed suit against the dealer and took the property in less than 10 days. This was held sufficient demand to satisfy the statute under the 10 day rule. However, the court held for the plaintiff on the theory that “where one of two innocent persons *7 must suffer by the act of a third, he, by whose negligence it happened, must be the sufferer.”

The section of the statute which is pertinent to the instant case is as follows:

“Where under the terms of the trust receipt transaction, the trustee . .

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Bluebook (online)
64 N.E.2d 28, 224 Ind. 1, 168 A.L.R. 352, 1945 Ind. LEXIS 163, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/universal-credit-co-v-citizens-state-bank-ind-1945.