Associates Discount Corp. v. Weldon
Associates Discount Corp. v. Weldon
Opinion of the Court
The defendant seeks on this appeal to reverse a judgment of the Circuit Court in favor of the plaintiff of $1551.98 plus costs and an attorney’s fee of $232.80, resulting from the repossession and resale of an automobile.
On July 6, 1960, the defendant purchased of Miller-Pinto, Inc., of Bridgeport, a used 1959 Chevrolet automobile under a retail instalment contract. General Statutes §42-83 (e). Under the terms of the contract, the defendant promised to pay a time
The defendant became in default in the instalment payments, having failed to make any payments called for by the contract, and on September 21, 1960, the plaintiff repossessed the automobile. On September 26, 1960, the plaintiff notified the defendant by certified mail that the automobile would be sold at public auction on October 10, 1960, at 9:10 a.m., at the Miller-Pinto, Inc., garage, located at 17 North Avenue, Bridgeport, Connecticut. The notice of sale also contained this statement: “If sufficient money is not realized from this sale of ear to satisfy the amount due; under the terms of the contract you will be held liable for the deficiency.” In a letter to the defendant accompanying the notice of sale, the plaintiff advised the defendant of his right to redeem the car, of the balance due and owing under the terms of the contract and of his right to attend the sale. The letter also stated: “There is a very good reason why you should redeem the car if this is at all financially possible for you. If you cannot redeem, the same good reason makes it advisable for you to attend this sale and to bring some responsible acquaintances with you who might be interested in owning the ear. The reason is this: when we auction your car, we cannot be sure that we will get a bid high enough to pay
The defendant concedes, as indeed he must, that the notice of sale complied with the provisions of the statute. § 42-98 (d); see Elm Buick Co. v. Moore, 150 Conn. 631, 634.
The central question projected by the defendant in his brief and on oral argument in attacking the validity of the judgment for the deficiency owing after the resale is that the plaintiff failed to give notice by publication of the proposed sale; that no licensed auctioneer was present to conduct the sale; and that the sale was nothing more than a bookkeeping entry. “To sit quietly in one’s office,” says the defendant, “and engage in a bookkeeping transaction is not a sufficient compliance with the statute. The statute was designed to protect the rights of both parties. It was not designed to place a debtor at the mercy of a credit manager’s whim.” In other words, the defendant’s claim is that the resale was not conducted in a commercially reasonable manner
Under our Retail Instalment Sales Financing Act (chapter 733), the secured party could have elected to liquidate the secured transaction, default having occurred and the buyer having paid less than 50 percent of the purchase price, by keeping the chattel as its own free of the debtor’s equity, thereby waiving any claim to a deficiency judgment. 42-98 (e), 42-98 (h).
We find no requirement under the compulsory resale provisions of the statute, § 42-98 (d), for the secured party adequately to advertise the sale by publication or to furnish an auctioneer to conduct the sale. Even if such requirements were desirable, there is no justification for reading them into the statute. “We must construe and apply the statute as we find it, without reference to whether we think it would have been or could be improved by the inclusion of other provisions.” Granniss v. Weber, 107 Conn. 622, 630. “It is axiomatic that the court itself cannot rewrite a statute to accomplish a particular result. That is the function of the legislature.” Duart v. Axton-Cross Co., 19 Conn. Sup. 188, 190.
We have examined Universal C. I. T. Credit Corporation v. Beckwith, 23 Conn. Sup. 362, 1 Conn. Cir. Ct. 241, and Modern Auto Finance Corporation v. Preston, 2 Conn. Cir. Ct. 492, relied upon by the defendant; these cases are distinguishable on the facts from the instant case.
There is no error.
In this opinion Kosicki and Kinmonth, Js., concurred.
As Justice King, later chief justice, pointed out, the 1961 amendment, not applicable to the present ease, increased the buyer’s equity requisite for a compulsory sale from 50 percent to 60 percent and extended the time in which the resale must be held from thirty days to ninety days after giving notice. Elm Buick Co. v. Moore, 150 Conn. 631, 632 n.1; see Modern Auto Finance Corporation v. Preston, 2 Conn. Cir. Ct. 492, 495 n.1.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.