293 N.W. 477 | Iowa | 1940
The chattel mortgage that is here involved was duly filed and indexed on October 1, 1938, in the office of the recorder of Clinton county, Iowa, that having been the county of the mortgagor's residence. There was no actual knowledge of the mortgage on the part of the defendant at the time it purchased and allegedly converted the 13 steers. At the conclusion of the trial the parties were granted time within which to file briefs. On a subsequent date the court entered an "order and judgment" in which a finding was made "that the mortgage involved in this proceeding was not sufficient to impart notice to third parties, including the defendant herein", and accordingly in the same entry the action was dismissed at the plaintiff's costs. The parties agree in argument that the insufficiency the court had in mind was an insufficiency, as a matter of law, of the description of the property claimed to have been mortgaged. That the court erred in so holding, and by reason of such holding dismissing the action at plaintiff's costs, is urged by plaintiff-appellant in his first assignment of error. The following discussion is of that assignment:
From the chattel mortgage we quote the following portion:
"Know All Men By These Presents; That William Weets, Jr., and . . . . . . . . his wife, of Oxford Jct., Iowa, postoffice, County of Clinton, State of Iowa, Mortgagor, in consideration of, and to secure the payment of the sum of Two Thousand Five 60/100 Dollars, in hand, paid by Oswald Strand, Mortgagee, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged,* * * do hereby mortgage, sell and convey unto the said mortgagee and assigns, the following personal property, situated and kept on *877 Northwest 1/4 of Section 22 Township 83, Range 1 in Clinton County, State of Iowa, towit: 34 whiteface steers, 25,070 lbs @ $8.00. $2,005.60. The above described cattle are now in the sale yards of Oswald Strand located in Manly, Iowa, to be removed to the above described location. The consideration of the within mortgage is the purchase price of said chattels. And all other * * * cattle * * * together with * * * all additions or substitutions therefor * * * and the Mortgagor hereby covenants, agrees and warrants that he is the absolute owner of the property above described, that the same is now in his possession and shall not be removed from the location as above described without the written consent of mortgagee first obtained; * * *".
On the trial the parties stipulated: "That said William Weets, Jr., on or about September 24, 1938, purchased from plaintiff, Oswald Strand, at plaintiff's cattle sales yard at Manly, Iowa, 34 head of white faced steers and did on that date execute to plaintiff the chattel mortgage, plaintiff's exhibit 2, encumbering said 34 head of white faced steers, and also the promissory note, plaintiff's exhibit 1, which said chattel mortgage secures." These exhibits were the afore-mentioned chattel mortgage and note.
Uncontradicted testimony showed the following matters: On September 24, 1938, Weets appeared at plaintiff's sales yard at Manly, Iowa. Thereupon Weets and plaintiff selected 34 white-faced steers out of 60 cattle that were in a pasture. They then separated the 34 head from the others and drove them to plaintiff's said sales yard and weighed them, and placed them in a separate yard in which there were no other cattle. At this time Weets bought the 34 white-faced steers from plaintiff for $2,005.60 and executed the note and mortgage for said purchase price. On the following day a trucker, employed by Weets so to do, loaded the 34 steers out of the yard where they had been enclosed on September 24, 1938, and hauled and delivered them to the farm that Weets was occupying, *878 being the premises described in the mortgage as the Northwest 1/4 of Section 22, etc.
If there was the alleged appropriation and conversion by defendant of 13 of the mortgaged steers, it was accomplished on November 12, 1938, and December 10, 1938. That is, on the first-named date defendant purchased at a sales barn in Anamosa, Iowa, two white-faced steers that Weets had delivered there for sale for his account, and on the December date defendant purchased at the same place, under identical circumstances, 11 other white-faced steers. Concerning these 13 steers, that are the subject matter of this action, there is in the record this stipulation: "The 34 head of white faced steers purchased by one William Weets, Jr., at Manly, Iowa, on September 24, 1938, are the same 34 head of white faced steers which were on September 25, 1938, trucked from the sale yards of the plaintiff * * * at Manly, Iowa, * * * to the farm premises occupied by the said William Weets, Jr., in Clinton County Iowa. And it is further stipulated and agreed that from said date, namely September 25, 1938, until the dates of the two sales to the defendant * * * that the cattle that were purchased by the defendant * * * were in the possession of the said William Weets, Jr., on said premises in Clinton County, Iowa."
To impart constructive notice, under our recording acts, the description in a chattel mortgage of the personal property must be of such character as to enable third persons, aided by inquiries which the instrument suggests, to identify the property. First Nat. Bank of Hudson v. Maxwell,
Had defendant made inspection of the records before buying the 13 white-faced steers that were being sold for the account of William Weets, Jr., defendant would have learned that on September 24, 1938, William Weets, Jr., had mortgaged 34 white-faced steers to Oswald Strand, now plaintiff in this action. Reading the mortgage, defendant could not have failed to observe that the 34 white-faced steers, mortgaged by the instrument, were therein particularized. That is, they were designated as 34 white-faced steers that had been purchased by Weets from the mortgagee, and that were located in Oswald Strand's sales yard in Manly, Iowa, at the time of the execution of the purchase price mortgage, on September 24, 1938, That their then weight was 25,070 pounds, that they were in Weets' possession and owned by him, was added information one reading the mortgage could not but acquire.
Defendant, upon examining the record, was "bound to make every inquiry which the instrument itself could reasonably be deemed to suggest." Yant v. Harvey,
HALE, SAGER, MILLER, BLISS, and OLIVER, JJ., concur.