97 N.J.L. 225 | N.J. | 1922
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The defendant purchased from Cole & Dixon, dealers in auto trucks, two such trucks and paid for them. The plaintiff, claiming to own the trucks, brought a suit in replevin to recover possession of them, in which action the defendant gave bond and reclaimed them, filed a proper an
The ground of this appeal is that the trial court refused to admit in evidence certain written papers offered by the plaintiff, all of them being offered for identification appear in the record. These writings consist of the check given by the plaintiff for the purpose of paying the draft; the account of the transaction kept by the plaintiff in its books, as well as copies of the original bills of lading, none of which are material to the issue raised and argued. The papers material to the issue are two storage . receipts signed and delivered by Cole & Dixon at the time they received the certified check. They are each in the same form, being one for each of the trucks, and recite that Cole & Dixon had received from the plaintiff one new automobile, describing it.
The statute concerning chattel mortgages (Comp. Stat., p. 463, § 4) declares that every chattel mortgage or conveyance intended to operate as such, which shall not be accompanied by an immediate delivery, and followed by an actual and continued change of possession of the things mortgaged, shall be absolutely void as against subsequent purchasers in good faith,, unless the mortgage, having annexed thereto a prescribed affidavit, be recorded, which record shall, by virtue of the fifth section of the same act, be in the clerk’s office of the county where the property mortgaged shall be at the time of its execution. The statute relating to conditional sales contains a similar requirement as to recording. The storage receipts which are the basis of the claim do not appear to have been recorded either as a chattel mortgage or as a conditional bill
■For affirmance- — Ti-te Chaxcellor, Chief Justice, Svayze, Trexchard, Parker, Bergex, Mixturx, Kat,.irci-i, Black, Katzexbach, White, Heppexheimer, Williams, Gardxer, Ackerrox, Vax Bcrkirk, JJ. Id.
For reversal — Kone.