Rose v. Myers (1986)

Citation: 223 Mont. 13, 724 P.2d 176 · Court: Supreme Court of Montana · Decided: August 21, 1986 · Opinion: Turnage, C.J.; Hunt, J., concurring.

Source note (2026-10-18):

• Links on this page to https://static.case.law/mont/223/cases/0013-01.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.

Case page. Legal information, not legal advice. Last verified: 2026-10-16. Opinion text read from the Caselaw Access Project static export (https://static.case.law/mont/223/cases/0013-01.json); the CourtListener record links the court’s PDF (storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/1986/08/21/rose_v._myers.pdf), which was also retrieved.

Facts

Myers agreed orally in 1984 to care for the Roses’ horses at USD 12 per head per month; the parties disputed whether that price covered winter feeding. After a first lien-sale notice was mooted by a payment, Myers had the Yellowstone County Sheriff issue a notice of an agister’s lien sale on March 1, 1985, for March 11. Notices were mailed (postmarked March 1) and posted in the county, and Myers told the Roses of the sale by telephone on March 2 and 3. At the sale 55 of 129 horses were sold, by lots and not as registered animals, for USD 6,830. The Roses sued to declare the sale invalid and nullify the certificate of sale, arguing lack of due process, defective notice and an unfair sale.

Holding

The Court affirmed the district court: the sale was valid because the owners had actual, timely notice — two mailed notices 10 days before the sale plus two telephone calls — and the notice’s description of the horses “by number, sex, and color” was “sufficient to alert the public to the nature of the sale.” For a lien sale to stand, “the seller, acting in good faith, must substantially comply with the notice requirements of the power of sale, and the resultant sale must be a fair one.” Selling horses in lots, at prices the owners said were far below value, was not shown to be commercially unreasonable; the Court borrowed the UCC’s commercial-reasonableness language (then MCA 30-9-507(2)) as “helpful” although the UCC did not govern the sale. The majority declined to decide whether the lien-sale statute was constitutional and directed the Legislature’s attention to due-process concerns.

Reasoning

• The statute then in force (quoted in the opinion as MCA 71-3-1203) required the lienor to give the sheriff a statement of the claim; the sheriff advertised and sold at public auction “in the same manner as provided by law for the sale of mortgaged personal property by sheriffs,” with notice 5 to 10 days before sale, and paid chattel-mortgage holders of record in order of precedence before the owner.
• The district court’s test — notice “reasonably calculated to reach the owners” — was approved.
• A judicial-notice error about the contract price was harmless because the owners’ own testimony established that feed and labor were extra.
• Concurrence (Hunt, J.): the statute was unconstitutional because a sheriff’s seizure and sale on a private party’s statement, with no judge, affidavit, bond or pre-sale hearing, is state action without notice and opportunity to be heard (citing Fuentes v. Shevin and Mitchell v. W.T. Grant); he concurred in the result because the owners had received a full post-sale hearing.

Practical impact

• Buyers / operators: a Montana lien-sale buyer’s title survives an owner’s challenge where notice substantially complied and actually reached the owner, even if the price was low and goods were sold in lots.
• Owners: the decision is the background to Montana’s later statutory changes — the general service lien now requires a court show-cause order and a lien-enforcement judgment before the sheriff sells (MCA 71-3-1203), and the agister’s lien now requires 10 days’ notice to the owner and lienholders (MCA 71-3-1213).
• Lenders: proceeds still go to chattel-mortgage holders of record in order of precedence before the owner.

Good-law status

Not overruled as far as the retrieved record shows (no citator check run). The statutory text it construed has been superseded: compare the 1986 text quoted in the opinion with current MCA 71-3-1203 and 71-3-1211 to 71-3-1214 (retrieved 2026-10-16 from leg.mt.gov).

Applies in →

montana · towing-storage-and-mechanics-lien-sales · court-ordered-administrative-and-creditor-sales