Opinion
No. 3295.
Decided December 2, 1941.
An attaching creditor if put on inquiry as to the title of the property is charged with such knowledge as reasonable diligence would have given him.
The provisions of P. L., c. 100 requiring the registration of motor vehicles are regulatory measures to secure the efficient collection of revenue, and to facilitate identification in case of accident or violation of the law, and do not affect property rights.
Hence a creditor who attaches a car in reliance solely on the registration and ignores information which would have shown the car to have been purchased by another in whom the legal title was vested acquires no lien by his attachment.
A representation which does not mislead cannot be the foundation of an estoppel.
REPLEVIN, for an automobile which the defendant, a deputy sheriff, attached on August 2, 1940, as the property of Theodore Bosen, in whose name the car was registered. The case was heard by a referee, whose report was in favor of the plaintiff.
A summary of the report follows. Before making the attachment the defendant was informed by Theodore Bosen that the car belonged to the plaintiff. The defendant thereupon looked up the registration of the car and then placed the attachment. With two sources of information, he chose one and ignored the other, when he could easily have ascertained where and by whom the car was purchased. The plaintiff purchased the car on October 21, 1939, from an agency in Portsmouth, as evidenced by a bill of sale and service policy. Legal title to the car was vested in the plaintiff before and at the time of the attachment, and due diligence on the part of the defendant would have disclosed that fact to him.
The defendant's motion to set aside the report was granted and judgment ordered for the defendant "on the theory that the defendant had the right to rely on the records in the Commissioner's office and that the plaintiff is estopped by a condition, which if he did not help create he must have known existed and which he allowed to continue."
The plaintiff's bill of exceptions was allowed by Young, C. J.
Loukas N. Coussoule, for the plaintiff.
Charles J. Griffin, for the defendant.
One who permits his automobile to be registered in the name of another is not precluded, so far as any statutory prohibition is concerned, from asserting his title. The provisions of chapter 100 of the Public Laws requiring the registration of motor vehicles are regulatory measures designed to secure the efficient collection of revenue and to facilitate identification in case of accident or violation of the law. Clark v. Hampton, 83 N.H. 524, 529; Eastman v. Herrick, 87 N.H. 58, 59. They do not purport to affect property rights. Indeed, the word "owner," as generally used in the statutes relating to motor vehicles, is defined as "any person holding title to a motor vehicle, or having exclusive right to the use thereof for a period greater than thirty days." P. L., c. 99, s. 1, cl. xx.
How far the principle of estoppel may apply to particular situations need not be determined. It is clearly inapplicable here. Before making the attachment the defendant was told that the plaintiff owned the car. He was thus put on inquiry and charged with such knowledge as reasonable diligence would have given him. Odlin v. Gore, 41 N.H. 465, 477; Eyers Woolen Co. v. Gilsum, 84 N.H. 1, 7; Reed v. Linscott, 87 N.H. 139, 142. Since he must be held to have known the true state of the title, it cannot be found that he was misled by the registration, and a representation which does not mislead cannot furnish the foundation for an estoppel. Wood v. Griffin, 46 N.H. 230, 237; Moore v. Bowman, 47 N.H. 494, 499; Howison v. Bank, 88 N.H. 31, 38.
The plaintiff's exceptions are sustained.
Judgment on the report.
All concurred.