Independent Bank v. Davis, et al., [Ms. CL-2025-0052, Nov. 7, 2025] __ So. 3d __ (Ala. Civ. App. 2025). The court (Fridy, J.; Moore, P.J., and Hanson and Bowden, JJ., concur; Edwards, J., concurs in the result) reverses the Mobile Circuit Court’s judgment in favor of William W. Rylee in its action filed by Independent Bank (“the Bank”) against him on a deficiency balance following repossession. The trial court held that bank’s effort to collect the deficiency was barred.
Rylee was a secondary oblige on the debt. The circuit court held that the Bank failed to give Rylee commercially reasonable notice of its intent to dispose of the collateral. The court “agree(s) with Rylee that mailing a letter with his name on it to Davis’s address, without also sending one to his address of 9823 Hollowbrook Avenue, was not a commercially reasonable way to send the notices required” by §§ 7- 9A-611(b) and (c) of the Alabama Code. Ms. *8. The court also holds that “‘failure to transmit notice, or transmission of insufficient notice, is in and of itself commercially unreasonable behavior.’” Ms. *14, quoting Stone v. Cloverleaf Lincoln-Mercury, Inc., 546 So. 2d 388, 390 (Ala. 1989).
However, the court holds that the trial court erred “because it completely barred the Bank from recovering its deficiency instead of granting Rylee a setoff.” Ms. *9, citing Folks v. Tuscaloosa County Credit Union, 989 So. 2d 531 (Ala. Civ. App. 2007) (plurality opinion).