Fruehauf Corp. v. Huntington Moving & Storage Co. (1975)

Citation: 159 W. Va. 14, 217 S.E.2d 907 · Court: Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, No. 13411 · Decided: September 9, 1975 · Opinion: Haden, C.J.

Source note (2026-10-18):

• Links on this page to https://static.case.law/w-va/159/cases/0014-01.json are 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 159), an unofficial host. The S.E.2d parallel citation is taken from later opinions of the same court that cite this case (bank-of-white-sulphur-springs-v-patriot-ford-1994, general-motors-acceptance-corp-v-dc-wrecker-service-2007).

Facts

Fruehauf sold a trailer to R. G. Maher under a conditional sales contract and perfected its security interest by noting its lien on a Virginia certificate of title. Maher defaulted, and in July 1971 brought the trailer to Huntington Moving & Storage in West Virginia for repairs and improvements, then never paid. The storage company claimed USD 3,719.55 for repairs, improvements and storage, and an employee became the “purchaser” of the trailer at a distress sale conducted by a constable to satisfy the storage company’s lien. Fruehauf, which had obtained a federal judgment in Virginia awarding it possession, sued in the Circuit Court of Cabell County for the trailer or its value. The circuit court granted Fruehauf summary judgment and ordered the trailer restored to it.

Holding

Affirmed. The repairer’s lien under W. Va. Code 38-11-3 is subordinate to a prior perfected security interest. Former W. Va. Code 46-9-310 (now W. Va. Code § 46-9-333) gives a possessory repair lien priority over a perfected security interest “unless the lien is statutory and the statute expressly provides otherwise,” and W. Va. Code 38-11-2 and 38-11-3, read together, expressly provide otherwise: the lienor takes only the rights a purchaser of the deposited property would take, subject to existing titles, liens and charges as of deposit (syllabus point 6, as quoted in later opinions).

Reasoning

• A security interest perfected on another state’s certificate of title is valid in West Virginia under the UCC choice-of-law rule then in force.
• At common law a repairer’s lien was a bare right to keep the goods; “a sale made by him of the property would be wrongful.” The Legislature enlarged that lien into a statutory one with sale remedies (article 11 of chapter 38), and in doing so supplanted the common-law lien, so the UCC’s “rule of law” route to priority does not apply.
• Sections 2 and 3 of article 11 must be read in pari materia; section 2’s purchaser-rights rule is the express subordination that § 9-310 (now § 9-333) contemplates.

Practical impact

• Buyers at a repair, storage or towing lien sale of a West Virginia vehicle or other goods take subject to earlier perfected liens; a lender with a recorded title lien can recover the goods from the lienor or the lien-sale buyer.
• Repair shops and storage operators cannot count on outranking a recorded lender. The current text of W. Va. Code § 38-11-3 adds a limited payment right (the lesser of cost of parts and labour or USD 1,500) when an improver releases a motor vehicle to a repossessing secured party.
• Lenders recover collateral held by a lienor without paying the lien, subject to that proviso.

Good-law status

Still good law as of 2026-10-17: followed in bank-of-white-sulphur-springs-v-patriot-ford-1994 (which corrected a mis-cited code reference in syllabus point 4) and in general-motors-acceptance-corp-v-dc-wrecker-service-2007. The constable’s distress-sale procedure available to lienors in 1971 has since been replaced: unless the parties agreed on a method, a lienor now gives notice and must sue within 30 days (W. Va. Code § 38-11-14, current text retrieved 2026-10-16). Section 38-11-2 is unchanged in substance (W. Va. Code § 38-11-2).

Applies in →

west-virginia · towing-storage-and-mechanics-lien-sales · ucc-article-9-dispositions · motor-vehicles