10 S.E.2d 117 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1940
1. A contract of conditional sale with retention of title is shown by an instrument which recites that a part of the purchase-money is paid in cash, and that the notes therein embodied, for stated sums payable in installments, are given for the balance of the purchase-price of the property described, and that the title to this property is to remain in the seller until fully paid for.
2. The description of the property in the instrument in this case was sufficient.
3. The conditional bill of sale having been duly executed, attested, and recorded before the time of the issuing of the execution on the plaintiff's distress warrant for rent, it had priority over the subsequent lien under the warrant.
1. The plaintiff contends that the instrument in question (the contract between the claimant and the defendant in the distress warrant) would neither place nor retain title to the property previously delivered to the claimant, as against the plaintiff's judgment lien under the distress warrant; that the claimant, not having pleaded or claimed that the instrument was incorrectly worded through fraud, accident, or mistake, and having contended the contract is a valid written instrument, "will not be allowed to vary its plain terms by parol evidence, and show that an order for additional goods to be shipped was in fact a bill of sale to secure debt, covering articles delivered over a range of months in the past." The claimant contends that the instrument in question is a valid conditional-sale contract, and does not contend that it is a bill of sale to secure a debt for articles delivered in the past. For a distinction between such instruments see Jackson v. Parks,
Our Supreme Court has held that "a conditional-sale agreement, carrying constructive notice upon being properly recorded, must evidence within itself an agreement of purchase and sale, and there must at least be enough in the writing to furnish a key which will open the investigation to parol evidence." NationalCash Register Co. v. Lipka,
2. The plaintiff further contends that the description in the instrument is insufficient, for example, the first item, "2 Doz. W. 54-68, 9 1/2" Platters," would describe any two dozen platters, and that "even the meager means of identification afforded by the stock numbers were not affixed upon the merchandise claimed by the defendant in error [claimant]." "It is well settled that the rule requiring that a mortgage or conditional bill of sale shall `specify' the property on which it is to take effect does not require that the description shall serve to identify it without the aid of parol evidence, where the instrument indicates within itself some method by which the aid of extrinsic evidence in its aid can be limited. A. S. ThomasFurniture Co. v. T. C. Furniture Co.,
3. The general lien of landlords for rent on the property of the debtor ranks with other liens and with each other, according to date, the date being from the time of levying a distress warrant. Code, § 61-204. "Deeds, mortgages, and liens of all kinds, which are required by law to be recorded in the office of the clerk of the superior court, shall, as against the interests of third parties acting in good faith and without notice, who may have acquired a transfer or lien binding the same property, take effect only from the time they are filed for record in the clerk's office." § 67-2501. The properly executed and attested conditional-sale contract was recorded January 19, 1939, before the date of the distress warrant, March 1, 1939, and the conditional sale was superior to the distress warrant. The judge did not err in finding in favor of the claimant, the holder of the conditional-sale contract.
Judgment affirmed. Broyles, C. J., and Gardner, J., concur. *866