Mariners Bay Co. v. Department of Motor Vehicles (1991)
Citation: 229 Cal.App.3d 808, 280 Cal.Rptr. 292. Court: California Court of Appeal, Second District, Division One. Decided: April 26, 1991. Opinion: Ortega, J.
Source note (2026-10-18):
- Links on this page to
https://static.case.law/cal-app-3d/229/cases/0808-01.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.
Facts
Marina operators sought to require DMV to register vessels sold under the landlord abandoned-property procedure after unlawful-detainer judgments. They asserted that the Boaters Lien Law was slow, expensive and inapplicable to their slip-leasing business. The trial court sustained DMV’s demurrer and dismissed. Full opinion, pp. 810–812.
Holding
Affirmed. For the vessels covered by the complaint, the Boaters Lien Law supplied the exclusive possessory-lien enforcement procedure. Marina berthage falls within statutory storage. An unlawful-detainer judgment allowing recovery of a slip did not permit circumvention of the vessel-sale protections. Full opinion, pp. 812–815.
Reasoning
The special law protects interested owners/lenders through DMV involvement, identification and notice, opposition and hearing, valuation, commercially reasonable sale and ten-day post-sale redemption. Those protections would be lost under the proposed landlord-property shortcut. The landlord remedy also contemplated premises already vacated, while the vessels still occupied the slips. Full opinion, pp. 812–815.
Practical impact
Verify the vessel falls within the statute and the lien-sale paperwork/hold was completed. The opinion does not require DMV registration of an otherwise exempt vessel and expressly does not decide how valueless unseaworthy vessels may be destroyed. It does not announce universal discharge of senior maritime or lender interests. Full opinion and footnotes.
Good-law status
No contrary holding was located in this review; still_good is not an exhaustive citator certification. The reviewed current code retains the exclusive-procedure and ten-day-redemption provisions: Harb. & Nav. Code § 501.5, § 506.5, independently retrieved from the official code export, members LAW_SECTION_TBL_112211.lob and LAW_SECTION_TBL_51156.lob.
Source provenance
The full opinion and footnotes were retrieved October 17, 2026 from the Caselaw Access Project URL above, an unofficial reproduction of the court’s decision. Independent-review details: schema/verification/california-independent-review-2026-10-17.md.
Applies in →
california · marina-and-storage-lien-sales-of-vessels · vessels
Legal information, not legal advice. This page summarizes a retrieved decision; later law and transaction-specific facts require separate verification.