Dancing on the Edge of Article 9

Despite the fact that Article 9 is a much more comprehensive personal property security statute than was ever found in American law prior to its enactment, cases continue to present issues on the scope of the Article. Gone are the cases in which a court was called upon to determine whether a conditional sales contract could be dealt with under the factor\u27s lien law; it is now clear that all such personal property security devices are governed by Article 9. Yet many problems remain for the unwary lawyer. I will identify several and deal in detail with three of these coverage problems.[...] The first is the treatment of the United States government as a lender. When the United States grants credit either to a farmer (as the Farmers Home Administration) or in one of a number of other transactions, its rights are governed by federal statutory and common law. To what extent should that common law be derived from state law, namely Article 9? Second, I deal with quasi consignments. These are transactions in which an owner of goods puts those goods in the hands of another party for processing or other work of some sort. These arrangements are as varied as the imagination of the parties undertaking them. Some look indistinguishable from bailments, others look very much like consignments. In each case there is the question should we treat the original owner merely as an owner who has bailed his or her goods to another party or should we treat him or her as an unpaid seller or an unsecured creditor? Finally, I will deal with Article 9 as it applies to transactions somehow involving real estate. The most familiar case is that in which a secured creditor lends money against a mortgagee\u27s interest in a mortgage and mortgage note. Less well articulated, but nearly as important, are the secured creditor\u27s rights when he or she is lending to the vendor on a land-sale contract, to the lessee on a lease or even to the lessor