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41 Mich. 363

Wakeman v. Barrows

Michigan Supreme Court

Decided July 2, 1879

Michigan Supreme Court · decided 1879-07-02

<p> Voluntary assignee cannot attach Ms assignor’s chattel mortgage. </p> <p>Creditors can attack a chattel mortgage made by their debtor only in proceedings brought to enforce their claim.</p> <p>A voluntary assignee for the benefit of creditors has no greater title than his assignor to the latter’s property, and cannot question the validity of a recorded mortgage made by him, by suing him in replevin for chattels covered by the mortgage. It would be different with an assignee in bankruptcy or an involuntary assignee.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1879-07-02

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently June 1910

5 state decisions

3018791880189019001910decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Marston, JT.

¶1Barrows, claiming title as assignee of Wright & Wakeman, for the benefit of their creditors, brought replevin for certain goods held by Wakeman under a chattel mortgage given by the assignors, and turned out by them to the representative of the mortgagee the day previous to the assignment. The assignment described the mortgaged goods and added that they were “under conditional chattel mortgage to A. Wakeman, deceased, and now in their possession.”

¶2It is wholly unnecessary to discuss the various questions raised in reference to the validity and filing of this mortgage. There is one objection fatal to the plaintiff’s *365right to maintain the action. He was the voluntary assignee of the mortgagors, and took the property subject to the mortgage. His title to the goods and right to maintain this action could not be superior to that of his assignors. He did not represent their creditors in such a manner as to entitle him to attack the mortgage. Creditors could question the validity of the mortgage only in proceedings brought to enforce their claims.

¶3An assignee under the bankrupt law or an involuntary assignee under a State statute would occupy a different position, and the cases cited by counsel for defendant in error were all of this character. This plaintiff does not represent the creditors, and if he did he is in no position to question the validity of the mortgage. Voorhies v. Frisbie, 25 Mich., 476; Millar v. Babcock, 29 Mich., 526.

¶4The judgment must be reversed with costs and a new trial ordered.

The other Justices concurred.
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