104 So. 401 | Ala. | 1925
Appellant, the Commercial Credit Company, took from George E. Barlow an assignment of notes due for installments of purchase money to be thereafter paid. The automobile for which these notes were given in partial payment had been sold by Barlow to Fitzgerald. We think it should be conceded that the evidence warranted the conclusion that the automobile had been used by Fitzgerald for the unlawful transportation of forbidden liquor a very short time before its seizure, and so that any interest he had in the vehicle was properly condemned. But as to Barlow and the Commercial Credit Company our conclusion is that a different judgment should have been rendered. The evidence went to show that Fitzgerald had for some time been under the surveillance of police officers of Anniston and one or two agents of the law enforcement department who were stationed there, but had not been arrested for any violation of law. They suspected that he was engaged in the illicit liquor traffic. But Fitzgerald had, for years and until about a month before his purchase of this car, been an employee of the pipe works, earning good wages, and outside of police circles he had a good reputation. Conceding for the argument that the vendor and his assignee were affected by this limited reputation, and that it was sufficient to put them on notice of facts which reasonable inquiry would have developed going to show that the vendee might reasonably be expected to use the vehicle for the transport of liquors, in line with recent decisions of this court (State v. Hughes,
Reversed and remanded.
ANDERSON, C. J., and GARDNER and MILLER, JJ., concur.
