169 P. 1033 | Cal. | 1917
The Chatts, husband and wife, executed to plaintiff a chattel mortgage on their automobile, the mortgagors retaining the possession and use thereof. They delivered their automobile to defendant to have repair work done thereon. He did this work and held possession of the automobile until payment for it was made. The Chatts violated the terms of their chattel mortgage contract with plaintiff. For this violation plaintiff was entitled to take possession of the automobile and to sell it. Its endeavor to do so was met by the refusal of the defendant to deliver the automobile until payment of his bill, he contending for his possessory lien on account of the work performed. This action was brought to determine the respective rights of the parties and the priorities of their liens. The trial court decreed that the possessory lien of the repairer was subordinate to the chattel mortgage lien of the plaintiff and gave judgment accordingly. From that judgment this appeal has followed.
No question arises over the validity of the chattel mortgage as such, or over the constructive notice by recordation which that recordation gave to the world. The controlling sections of our code upon the subject matter are, Civil Code, sections 3051, 3052, and 2897. Section
All this has been said only in illustration of the fact that this important question received inadequate consideration inWilson v. Donaldson. It remains to be added that the question *113
of priority is wholly controlled by our statutory law. If by the fair intendment of that law these classes now enumerated in section
We are well convinced that our law does with intention make the possessory lien of the improver and of the repairer superior to the lien of the pre-existing chattel mortgage. True, it is said in Wilson v. Donaldson that if the legislature had desired to give such lien claimants priority over chattel mortgage liens, it was an easy thing to have said so, but our conviction is that it has said so and that its declaration has the support of reason and justice. Did the legislature mean that every artisan and mechanic to whom might be delivered a chattel for improvement and repair must search the records to discover whether that article had been mortgaged and, failing so to do, be at the peril of the impairment or total destruction of his lien, or did it mean that the money lender who took for security a chattel mortgage should take it with the understanding as part of his contract that improvements and repairs placed upon the article should be subject to a preferential possessory lien? Without hesitation we answer that the second alternative is sustainable as a just interpretation of the legislative enactments. Under the language of the two sections it seems most manifest that such is the true construction. Instancing but one consideration alone and that the right and power of the possessory lien claimant to sell the property, that right absolute is given him and he may exercise it so far as the statute reads without regard to the existence of the chattel mortgage and without regard to whether or not the chattel mortgage is foreclosable. One would certainly look to see some limiting language in the law if these provisions as to the right of sale and disposition of the proceeds of the sale were to be subordinated to a preferential right on the part of the holder of a chattel mortgage, and it certainly makes more for the protection of society and for the conduct of its business to say that all of these classes of men who preserve, improve, or repair personal property should, like mechanics and artisans under the mechanic's lien law, have their liens declared preferential. Concerning the money lender who holds the chattel mortgage, two suggestions may be briefly advanced, — one, that the possessory lien *114 claimant has preserved, improved, or repaired the property upon which he has a lien, and, consequently, has added a value to the security commensurate with his just charge; the other, that the money lender desiring to take the security of a chattel mortgage can with much more readiness reduce the amount of his loan to protect himself against the possible liability of a possessory lien than can the work-a-day artisan take the time to inspect the records to see whether such chattel mortgage exists against the property.
Besides reason, there is no lack of authority to support this construction of our law. The law of Wisconsin is identical with our own, and in Smith v. Kaestner,
The judgment appealed from is therefore reversed.
Melvin, J., Sloss, J., Victor E. Shaw, J., pro tem., and Angellotti, C. J., concurred.