1. An agreement assigning bonds, recorded as a chattel mortgage, does not come within the Chattel Mortgage act, inasmuch as bonds are not goods and chattels within the meaning of the act. Hence failure to record the instrument promptly does not come within the requirement of section 4 of that act.
2. As a general rule, a pledgee cannot buy in at its own sale, and if it attempts to do so, the sale is voidable.
3. Though the pledgee in this case was authorized to purchase the pledged bonds if the sale were at public auction, the sale was not a public one. An auction is not public unless the public is given a reasonable opportunity to attend and bid; such opportunity was not given in the present instance.
4. Defendant gave the P bank a mortgage on land, which mortgage is being foreclosed in this action, to secure an issue of bonds. The O bank later attached the premises in a law suit in which it recovered judgment. Shortly after this attachment, defendant assigned all his right, title and interest to the bonds held by the P bank, to the M bank, to secure a certain note by that bank. Held, that the M bank is not a bona fide holder of the bonds, for it never was an actual holder of the bonds and many of the bonds were overdue when the assignment to the M bank was made.
5. All parties dealing with the mortgagor since the recording of the mortgage did so at their own peril with respect to any rights which might accrue in favor of anyone under that mortgage. The O bank, a third party, cannot complain of the mortgagor doing what he did, assigning all his interest in the bonds to the M bank — and hence has a third lien on the premises.
PER CURIAM.
The decree appealed from will be affirmed, for the reasons stated in the opinion filed in the court below by Vice-Chancellor Bigelow.
For affirmance — THE CHANCELLOR, TRENCHARD, PARKER, LLOYD, CASE, BODINE, DONGES, BROGAN, VAN BUSKIRK, KAYS, DEAR, WELLS, KERNEY, JJ. 13.
For reversal — None.