Bank of Chapmanville v. Workman (1991)
Citation: 185 W. Va. 161, 406 S.E.2d 58 · Court: Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, No. 19937 · Decided: June 6, 1991 · Opinion: Neely, J.
Source note (2026-10-18):
- Links on this page to
https://static.case.law/w-va/185/cases/0161-01.jsonare an (unofficial Caselaw Access Project copy, retrieved before 2026-10-18; host disallows automated access); no official or otherwise permitted full-text copy was located on 2026-10-18.
Opinion text retrieved 2026-10-17 from the Caselaw Access Project’s static copy of the West Virginia Reports (static.case.law, W. Va. volume 185), an unofficial host.
Facts
The Workmans financed a 1982 mobile home with the Bank. After two missed payments in 1987 the Bank sent a notice of right to cure and a final demand; the Workmans vacated. The Bank mailed a notice of public sale (returned unclaimed), ran a single legal notice in the Logan Banner and posted one at the courthouse. The notice gave no specific address, no telephone number and no mention of inspection. No bidders came; the Bank bought the home itself for USD 10,614 (below the NADA guide value), claimed a USD 7,873.25 deficiency, and four months later resold it to a private buyer for USD 13,000 after a classified advertisement that did list a phone number. The trial court directed verdicts for the Bank on its deficiency claim and the Workmans’ counterclaim.
Holding
Reversed and remanded. A jury could find the Bank’s public sale commercially unreasonable under former W. Va. Code 46-9-504 and 46-9-507. If it does, West Virginia follows the rebuttable presumption rule: the collateral’s value is presumed equal to the remaining debt, and the secured party must prove the debt exceeded fair market value to recover any deficiency. Consumer debtors may also recover the statutory minimum damages, but not on top of the benefit of the presumption.
Reasoning
- The sale notice had to serve as the advertisement to bidders; omitting a location, phone number and inspection opportunity, and treating the notice as a formality, can make a public sale unreasonable.
- A secured party that buys at its own sale and resells higher does nothing wrong if the first sale was commercially reasonable and the price not unreasonably low.
- The “absolute bar” rule is a judge-made penalty unsupported by the UCC; the “set-off” rule leaves the debtor unable to prove loss. The rebuttable-presumption rule was already followed by the federal court for the Southern District of West Virginia.
Practical impact
- Buyers at a secured party’s public sale of a mobile home, vehicle or equipment are not affected in title (a good-faith transferee takes free of the debtor’s rights under W. Va. Code § 46-9-617), but a thinly advertised sale exposes the lender to losing its deficiency.
- Lenders must advertise a repossession sale as a real sale: location, contact information and inspection.
- Debtors can contest the deficiency and shift the burden to the lender.
Good-law status
Decided under former Article 9. Revised Article 9 as adopted in West Virginia codifies the rebuttable-presumption rule for non-consumer transactions and leaves consumer transactions to the courts, which “may continue to apply established approaches” (W. Va. Code § 46-9-626, retrieved 2026-10-16); Workman therefore remains the West Virginia approach for consumer transactions so far as located. No later CAP decision (through 2017) overruling it was found.