Farmer & Ochs Co. v. Ginsburg
Farmer & Ochs Co. v. Ginsburg
Opinion of the Court
This is an appeal from a judgment of the District Court of the First Judicial District of the county of Morris. The action was one of replevin. The question involved was whether a chattel mortgagee’s claim to possession of an automobile truck was superior to a title to the truck obtained by a purchaser at a sale under a garage keeper’s lien. The facts necessary of a proper understanding of the situation were that on November 25th, 1925, the Bessemer American Motors Corporation, a Pennsylvania corporation with an office at Plainfield in this state, sold to Julius Turetsky and Harry Schwimmer, in New York Citj’, a Bessemer truck.
The plaintiff has appealed to this court and contends that the truck and the parties to the chattel mortgage being in New York City at the time of the making of the chattel mortgage, the recording of the instrument in New York City was sufficient to make it a first lien o-n said truck and superior to the title which the defendants below obtained under the lien sale. The appellant further contends that it is protected by the 1925 amendment to the Garage Keepers’ Lien act (Pamph. L. 1925, p. 96), which provides that such lien shall not be superior to, nor affect, .any lien, title or interest of any person or corporation held by virtue of a prior conditional sale or of a prior chattel mortgage properly recorded.
We do not think that a mortgage in New York form, and recorded in New York, is entitled to the protection of this amendment of the New Jersey Garage Keepers’ Lien act under the circumstances of the present case. The Chattel Mort-
A foreign chattel mortgage should have no extra-territorial effect beyond that which may be specifically given to it by the laws of this state. Inasmuch as a recording in this state is contemplated by our act, and inasmuch as the New Jer
If we are wrong in this conclusion there is another aspect of the case which we think leads to the same result. While the chattel mortgage was made in New York City, and the truck which it covered was at the time of its execution in the city of Xew York, yet the parties to the mortgage knew that the truck was to he immediately taken to New Jersey and had provided m the mortgage for a New' Jersey situs for the truck so that the truck was to be permanently located in New Jersey by the terms of the mortgage. With this knowledge as to the situs of the truck the mortgagee took no step to protect its interest by recording the mortgage in the county of the situs of the truck, assuming that the mortgage was draw'll in proper form. It would naturally be in New Jersey that storage and supplies for the truck, for which a garage keeper would have a lien, would be obtained. One who furnished storage, &c., would have no way of knowing, in the absence of any record of a lien, whether there was a superior lien against the truck. It seems to us that the mortgagee is estopped from asserting, as against a garage keeper’s lien, a claim of superior title, because the failure of the mortgagee to protect his interests by a proper recordation of the mortgage in New Jersey would create a situation which would result in loss to the garage keeper or an innocent purchaser under a sale to foreclose a garage keeper’s lien, if we recognized and gave to the New York mortgage the same force and effect' as if made and recorded according to the laws of this state.
The judgment of the District Court is affirmed, with costs.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.