Agricredit Acceptance Corp. v. Michels (1991)
Citation: 250 Mont. 23, 817 P.2d 704, No. 91-206 · Court: Montana Supreme Court · Decided: September 24, 1991. The complete court opinion is reproduced on Justia. Its linked scanned court PDF was downloaded normally on October 18, 2026: eight PDF pages, comprising seven numbered opinion pages and a service certificate. These are unofficial hosts of the primary court opinion. The earlier failed HTML capture remains separate from the recovered PDF body and checksum; no access-control workaround was used.
Facts
Agricredit repossessed and separately sold a combine and tractor after Michels defaulted, then sued for deficiencies. The trial court granted creditor summary judgment because notice of the sales had been given. Michels supplied an experienced equipment dealer’s affidavit questioning the advertising market and the relationship between equipment condition, value and realized prices. Opinion pp. 2–6.
Holding
Reversed and remanded: the affidavit raised a genuine issue of material fact about commercial reasonableness, defeating summary judgment. The court did not finally determine the proper sale value or hold that all such advertisements are inadequate. Opinion pp. 6–7.
Reasoning
The affidavit identified relevant farm-industry advertising, the machinery’s condition and valuation evidence. Merely notifying Michels did not eliminate the factual dispute supported by that evidence. Opinion pp. 4–7.
Practical impact
For repossessed equipment, preserve advertising reach and condition/value evidence alongside debtor notice. The decision concerns the creditor’s deficiency suit, not an adjudication that the purchasers lost title. Opinion pp. 2, 4–7.
Good-law status
Actual review: October 18, 2026. The full opinion’s sole merits disposition is reversal of creditor summary judgment and remand because Palmer’s affidavit raised a material commercial-reasonableness dispute. It did not decide the ultimate deficiency amount, adopt an absolute deficiency bar, invalidate purchaser title, or require farm-journal advertising in every equipment sale. Opinion pp.5–7.
In Estate of Michael v. Glacier General Assurance Co., No.93-375 (March 22, 1994), the Montana Supreme Court expressly distinguished Agricredit: the horse-sale opponent offered only a bare assertion, while the estate supplied expert evidence of sale methods and rapidly declining values. That record supported summary judgment. This is record-based distinction, not overruling. The full primary opinion was retrieved through an unofficial reproduction, and its linked scanned PDF was also recovered. Estate of Michael, commercial-reasonableness discussion.
Case-name, reporter-citation and adverse-treatment searches identified no later overruling in the retrieved material; that is a bounded treatment review, not a comprehensive citator certificate. Agricredit applied former §30-9-504. Current §§30-9A-610, -611, -615, -617 and -625–628, including the consumer/nonconsumer distinction, are separately sourced in montana module 12 rather than inferred from this 1991 decision.
Applies in →
montana · equipment-and-machinery · ucc-article-9-dispositions
Legal information, not legal advice. Verify current law and later treatment against primary sources and consult a licensed attorney before acting.