Wade v. Rathbun

SHAW, P. J.

Upon a judgment against defendant in the municipal court an automobile belonging to him was seized on execution, whereupon he claimed the automobile as exempt under the provisions of section 690.24 of the Code of Civil Procedure, alleging that its value was less than $100. The court, after a hearing, made an order declaring that the automobile was not exempt, from which defendant appeals.

The code section above referred to exempts from execution “one motor vehicle of a value not exceeding one hundred dollars”. At the hearing on defendant’s claim it was stipulated that “the wholesale value of said automobile, that is, the amount which said automobile would bring in the open market upon a forced sale, and the amount which used car dealers were regularly paying at that time for automobiles of like kind and condition was the sum of $50.00”; and further that “the retail value, that is, the amount which persons who were buying such automobiles for their own use were paying in the open market, was the sum of $120.00”. The trial court adopted the second of these two figures as the value of the automobile, whereas defendant contends that the first, or wholesale (forced sale), value should have been accepted, and this is the only point raised on this appeal.

Several of the sections of the Code of Civil Procedure relating to exemptions from execution provide for exemptions dependent upon the value of the property claimed (see secs. 690.1, 690.3, 690.6, 690.8, 690.9, 690.12, 690.17, 690.18, 690.21, and 690.24 above quoted), but nowhere in the legislation on this subject is there any definition of the word “value” as used therein, or any provision as to the matters to be considered in determining value. The question before us has not

*Supp. 760

been. considered in any California decision, as far as we are aware, but the word “value”, when not qualified by the context or circumstances, has often been defined as meaning “market value”, which is not what the owner could realize at a forced sale, but the price he could obtain after reasonable and ample time, such as would ordinarily be taken by an owner to make a sale of like property.

(San Diego Land etc. Co.

v.

Neale,

(1888) 78 Cal. 63, 68 [20 Pac. 372, 3 L. R. A. 83] (an eminent domain case);

Santa Ana

v.