Montana Attorney General Opinion 17-164

Opinion No. 164. Motor Vehicles-County Treasurer. Delivery of License Plates. I;IELD: ~he County Treasurer may dehver the license plates to the appli- cant in person or may mail them. Mr. T. F. Walsh Deputy Registrar September 29, 1937. of Motor Vehicles Deer Lodge, Montana My Dear Mr. Walsh: You have asked whether under Chap- ter 72, Laws of 1937, the county treas- urer is required to deliver the license plates to the applicant in person, or if delivery may be made through the mails. Section 1759.2 of the Revised Codes of Montana, 1935, as amended by Sec- tion 3, Chapter 72, Laws of 1937, provides as follows: "Issuance of Receipt and Assign- ment of Number Plates. Upon re- ceipt of application for registration and payment of license fee and taxes as herein provided, the county treas- urer shal1 file one copy of said appli- cation in his office and issue to the applicant a receipt executed in tripli- cate, delivering one copy of said receipt to the applicant, one copy to the county clerk and recorder and retaining one copy for his office; and he shal1 daily forward to the registrar of motor vehicles a duplicate copy of al1 applications for registration. The county treasurer shal1 also, and at the same time, assign such motor vehicle a distinctive number, viz., the license plate number. and deliver to the applicant two (2) license plates, as received from the registrar of motor vehicles which shal1 bear such distinctive numbers. The registrar shal1 ship said license plates to the various county treasurers by freight, so that they will be received by the county treasurer on or before January first of each year. It shal1 not be necessary for the county treasurer, in said receipt, to segregate the amount of said taxes for state. county, school district and municipal purposes." The question is upon the meaning of the word "deliver" as used in the fore- going section. In Dodge v. Jones. 7 Mont. 121, the court said: "No particular act or formal cere- mony is necessary to make a delivery in law. Any act done. coupled with the intent to change the ownership. 190 OPINIONS OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL which has the effect to transfer the dominion over the thing sold to the buyer, is a delivery." See also, Cady v. Zimmerman, 20 Mont. 225, 228; Nelson v. Davenport, 86 Mont. 1, 8. Therefore, a delivery can be either a manual one or it may be a construc- tive delivery. It has been held that delivery of goods to a common carrier, or delivery to the post office, addressed to a consignee,. is constructively a delivery to that consignee. Lake Shore M. S. R. R. Co. v. Na- tional Livestock Bank, 53 N. E. 326. Therefore, it is my opinion, under Section 1759.2 as amended, that the delivery of license plates may be either a manual one, that is, person- ally delivered to the applicant, or his agent; or may be a delivery by mail.