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KANSAS COMMENT, 1996

The first sentence of this section is identical to the 1995 Official Text. The second sentence is a nonuniform Kansas amendment which was added in 1983 when Kansas adopted the Self Storage Act, K.S.A. 58-813 through 58-819. The last sentence of 84-7-101 was the first section of the Self Storage Act, Laws of 1983, chapter 187, § 1. That section provides that the provisions of the Self Storage Act control if they conflict with the provisions of Article 7. The Self Storage Act deals primarily with liens in favor of operators of self storage facilities if tenants of the facility are in default on their obligations.

Article 7 is a comprehensive treatment of documents of title, and brings together in one place laws pertaining to documents of title, warehouse receipts and bills of lading which formerly were found in several different acts. Article 7 supersedes the Uniform Warehouse Receipts Act, the Uniform Bills of Lading Act, and parts of the Uniform Sales Act. Kansas adopted the Uniform Warehouse Receipts Act in 1909, but did not adopt either of the other two Uniform Acts.

Article 7 deals with the documents of title themselves, not with the underlying business aspects of warehousemen or carriers, or with the underlying sales contracts. See 84-7-509. Those subjects are left to other statutory or regulatory law, either local or federal. See 84-7-103. Article 7 is analogous in several respects to Article 3 on commercial paper.

Unlike the other articles of the Code, Article 7 contains no basic provision defining its scope. Parts 1, 4, 5 and 6 apply to all documents of title; Part 2 applies exclusively to warehouse receipts; and Part 3 applies exclusively to bills of lading. In Butler Mfg Co. v. Americold Corp, 835 F. Supp. 1274 (D. Kan. 1993), the court determined that Article 7 applied to the extent its individual sections were relevant. The court looked at the relationship of the parties despite a contract which declared the relationship was that of landlord/tenant and not bailor/bailee. The court declared "Thus, [Article 7's] scope must be determined by the applicability of its individual provisions. Due to defendants' status as warehousemen, their actions with respect to the records storage contracts is governed by K.S.A. § 84-7-204... ."

Useful secondary sources for Article 7 include White & Summers, Uniform Commercial Code Practitioner Series, chapters 28 and 29 (4th ed. 1995); Anderson on the Uniform Commercial Code (3rd ed. 1995) and Hawkland, Uniform Commercial Code Series, Volume 7 (Callaghan, 1986), all of which are supplemented regularly.

Revisor's Note:

Former section 84-7-101 repealed by L. 2007, ch. 90, § 78 and the number reassigned to the current text.