In re Brazier Forest Products, Inc. (1986)

Decided: September 4, 1986 · Docket: 51847-5.

Holding and limits

On certified questions arising from bankruptcy-sale proceeds, the majority held entities eligible for logger liens and ranked logger liens, stumpage liens, then the Article 9 security interest under the actual timber statute. Nonpossessory liens fell outside former possessory-lien § 9-310; their priority depended on statutory/common law, not automatic subordination. The court distinguished Levitch because its agister statute lacked the timber statute’s priority grant. The partial dissent disagreed on entity eligibility, not the priority result. Footnote 2 separately rejected treating the government’s timber sale as an excluded governmental transfer under former RCW 62A.9-104(e): that exclusion addressed security created by governmental debtors, and the Forest Service was not a borrower. This is an actual scope determination, not merely an editorial description of the UCC comment. Complete majority, partial dissent and notes, unofficial Justia reproduction.

Currentness

Modern Article 9A expressly covers agricultural liens and defines possession- dependent liens. Those current provisions require separate application; this 1986 decision is not a holding on 2001 agricultural-lien filing or the later seized-animal-care lien. Current .109(d)(14) retains Washington’s governmental- transfer exclusion; the footnote’s borrower/vendor distinction supplies the historical construction, rather than assuming every public asset sale excludes a pre-existing private-debtor security agreement. This is application to the retained language, not a vessel-auction holding. Comprehensive later treatment remains needs_verification; no publisher good-law badge is adopted. Full current RCW 62A.9A-102, -109, -308, -310, -322, -333.

Verified later treatment

The published Paris American Corp. v. McCausland, 52 Wn. App. 434, 438–439 (1988), expressly cites Brazier, pages 599–601, and applies its excluded- statutory-lien priority analysis to the landlord lien. That is a verified later non-timber application, not a holding about today’s agricultural liens or government vessel sales, and not comprehensive citator clearance. Full Paris American judicial text.

Applies in →

washington · levitch-v-link-wa-m12-1917

Legal information, not legal advice. Verify current law and subsequent treatment before relying on this decision.