Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/41

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
SANFORD v. DULUTH & DAKOTA ELECATOR CO.
15

wheat in question, and as such owner had a vendible interest which he could sell and deliver to a vende, subject, of course, to the lien of the mortgage. We do not place the decision, however, upon the ground that the elevator company had no actual notice of the existence of the mortgage. We are unable to see why the purchase would have been wrongful, even with actual notice of the existence of the mortgage. There was constructive notice, resulting from filing the mortgage, of the fact of the existence of the mortgage, and of the stipulations contained in it. The purchase, after filing in the proper office, was made subject to the lien, whether there was or was not actual notice. We place the ruling upon the general principle that the owner of personal property has a right to sell and deliver it, and that the purchaser takes a good title, subject to any lien thereon. Jones, Chat. Mortg. § 455. The sale and delivery alone not constituting a conversion of the property, it becomes necessary, in order to show conversion, that a demand and refusal to deliver should be shown. Cadwell v. Pray, 41 Mich. 307, 2 N. W. Rep. 52; Kohl v. Lynn, 34 Mich. 360. In Michigan, as in this state, a mortgage of chattels does not transfer title. Jones. Chat. Mortg. § 427; Randall v. Higbee, 37 Mich. 40; People v. Bristol, 35 Mich. 28; Campbell v. Quackenbush, 33 Mich. 287. See, also, Adams v. Wood, 51 Mich. 411, 16 N. W. Rep. 788. We do not overlook the fact that under the Penal Code (§ 6933, Comp. Laws,) it is felony in the mortgagor, "while the mortgage remains in force and unsatisfied," to "sell" the mortgaged property "without the written consent of the then holder of such mortgage." This statute, however, does not make it penal in the purchaser who buys mortgaged property; much less does it declare that the buyer obtains no title by such purchase. On the contrary, the very phraseology of the act carries the implication that such property might be sold and bought whenever the mortgage ceases "to be in force," or with the consent of the holder of the mortgage. In this case there is no evidence that defendant knew when it received the wheat that the mortgage was unpaid, and "remained in force," or knew that the holder of the mortgage had not given his consent to the sale. Nor do the terms of the mortgage convey any such information to the public. In