Barlow v. Fox

Citations

• 203 Pa. 114
• 52 A. 57
• 1902 Pa. LEXIS 661

Syllabus

<p>Sale — Personal property — Transfer of possession — Legal fraud.</p> <p>When by the action of the parties there has been a separation of the title and possession of personal property, courts will scrutinize the transaction to determine the real intention, and but little regard will be given to the form which it has taken or the name by which it is called. The law is liberal in not requiring an actual change of possession when it will defeat the lawful purpose of the parties. But there has been no deviation from the general rule that delivery of possession is indispensable to transfer a title, by the aot of the owner, that shall be valid against creditors. The rule applies not only to absolute sales, but also to contingent sales and mortgages. *</p> <p>Where the owner of the personal property in a hotel sells the same under a written agreement, and delivers possession, and subsequently the vendees execute a written cancelation of the agreement, at the same time signing a joint note with the seller to a bank for an amount equal to the amount of the unpaid purchase money, and the seller thereupon sells the furniture to a third person as trustee for the bank to secure the note, and the trustee leases the furniture to the original purchasers for one year for an amount equal to the unpaid purchase money with interest, and there is no delivery actual or symbolical, and the trustee never has possession in any manner or form, the trustee has no right to the furniture as against the creditors of the original purchasers, or as against the creditors of a firm which came into possesssion of the property and assumed the debt of the original purchasers.</p>