1. Whatever puts a party on inquiry amounts in the judgment of the law to notice, provided the inquiry becomes a duty, as in the case of a purchaser, and would lead to the knowledge of the requisite facts by the exercise of ordinary diligence and understanding.
2. The purchaser of personal property at a receiver's sale, having knowledge of the fact that the property was being sold subject to chattel mortgages, had such notice of the existence of chattel mortgages on the property to be sold that it had the duty of investigating the facts, without regard to whether the mortgages were invalid for failure to comply with the provisions of the Chattel Mortgage act, section 4 ( Comp. Stat. p. 463), requiring that chattel mortgages be recorded with reasonable dispatch.
3. The purchaser of personal property at a receiver's sale, having had notice of the fact that the sale was subject to liens and encumbrances, among which were the chattel mortgages in question, could not thereafter attack the validity of the mortgages on the ground that they were not recorded promptly or that the affidavits thereto were defective.
4. Where the two chattel mortgages in this case were not given for separate debts, but the second was given to secure the payment of the balance due on the first mortgage, held, that the first mortgage should be receipted and delivered up for cancellation of record.
PER CURIAM.
The decree appealed from will be affirmed, for the reasons stated in the opinion filed in the court below by Vice-Chancellor Fielder.
For affirmance — THE CHIEF-JUSTICE, TRENCHARD, PARKER, KALISCH, KATZENBACH, CAMPBELL, LLOYD, WHITE, VAN BUSKIRK, McGLENNON, KAYS, HETFIELD, DEAR, JJ. 13.
For reversal — None.