Washington State Employees Credit Union v. Robinson (1992)
Citation: 206 Ga. App. 782, 427 S.E.2d 15 · Court: Court of Appeals of Georgia · Decided: December 2, 1992 (reconsideration denied December 16, 1992) · Opinion: Pope, J.; Carley, P.J., and Johnson, J., concur.
Source note (2026-10-18):
- Links on this page to
https://static.case.law/ga-app/206/cases/0782-01.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.
Case page. Legal information, not legal advice. Last verified: 2026-10-17.
Facts
A Washington credit union (WSECU) financed the purchase of a 1985 Fleetwood motor home and was shown on the certificate of title “as the legal owner.” After a collision, a body shop (Custom Vans) repaired the motor home for USD 5,350; the insurer’s draft was split and the owner never paid the balance of USD 2,675. The shop refused to release the motor home to WSECU for less than USD 3,700 and “subsequently secured a mechanic’s lien.” WSECU obtained a writ of immediate possession in the State Court of DeKalb County; the trial court then dissolved the writ and also ruled that the shop’s mechanic’s lien was superior to WSECU’s security interest. (Source: https://static.case.law/ga-app/206/cases/0782-01.json , retrieved 2026-10-17.)
Holding
- Dissolving the writ was proper because there was sufficient evidence that the loan was a consumer transaction, and O.C.G.A. § 44-14-261 bars a writ of immediate possession “on an interest arising out of a consumer transaction.”
- The trial court should not have adjudicated lien priority on a motion to dissolve the writ (harmless here).
- On priority, the court reversed: “WSECU’s perfected security interest has priority over defendant’s mechanic’s lien.”
Reasoning
O.C.G.A. § 40-3-54(a) makes the vehicle mechanic’s lien “superior to all liens except for taxes and such other liens and security interests of which the mechanic had actual or constructive notice before the work was done.” Following Hull v. Transport Acceptance Corp., 177 Ga. App. 875 (1986), the court held that when “a security interest is noted on the certificate of title for a vehicle, the certificate of title is deemed to provide constructive notice to future creditors of the owner, including mechanics.” Because the repairs came “well after the certificate of title … was issued,” the shop had constructive knowledge and the lender’s security interest took priority. A security interest perfected in Washington “remained perfected in Georgia.”
Practical impact
- Buyer at a Georgia mechanic’s-lien sale of a titled vehicle: the repairer’s lien does not outrank a lender whose security interest was already noted on the title, so a lien-sale buyer cannot assume the sale wiped out the title lender. A title search (and proof that the title-noted lienholder was paid or joined) matters.
- Lender / owner: a title-noted security interest is enough constructive notice; actual notice to the shop is unnecessary for priority. In consumer transactions the lender cannot use the writ of immediate possession procedure (§ 44-14-261).
Good-law status
Later-treatment status remains needs_verification. The priority sentence of § 40-3-54(a) quoted by the court appears unchanged in the official O.C.G.A. text as amended by Ga. L. 2019, p. 872, § 3 (HB 307), which revised only the forfeiture subsection (b) (official text retrieved 2026-10-17 from Public.Resource.Org’s republication of O.C.G.A. Release 73). The full CAP opinion was independently downloaded again on 2026-10-17; matching statutory language is not a later-treatment check. No complete citator check was run.
Applies in →
georgia, towing-storage-and-mechanics-lien-sales, motor-vehicles
Legal information, not legal advice. Verify against the current primary source before relying on this summary.