Case ID: cow_5/html/0266-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Curia.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

In the matter of De Peyster, an absent debtor.
    After the seunder thAabscondmg debt-L. i57,) no creditor can be received to prove his debt.
    credito^to6 a dividend, he been such at the time of the lirst publication of the pro(ier^the ™ct, pursuant to the second
    On petition by the trustees of De Peyster, an absent or absconding debtor, under the act “ for relief against absconding and absent debtors,” (1R. L. 157,) for instruction: and on the application oí certain creditors of De P.eyster residing jn London; the following case was presented to the court: ;
    The trustees had made two dividends; and recently adxrei'tised a third and final dividend. The London creditors did not hear of the proceedings in this matter, till after the second .dividend; but they afterwards came in and claimed ylejr fup dividend before the final distribution should be made. The trustees also anticipated that claims to the dividend would be interposed by persons who had become creditors since the issuing of the attachment,
    
      G. Brinckerhoff for the London creditors,
    cited 1 R. L, 164, sect. 27; 1 John. Rep. 165, 173, 174, and the cases there cited.
    
      H. S. Jones, for the trustees,
    cited 1 R. L. 162, sect. 19.
   Curia.

The 19th section declares, that if any creditor neglects to give notice of, or deliver an account of his demand to the trustees until after distribution, pursuant to the 17th section, he shall not be entitled to any dividend; but if he shall comply before the second distribution, he shall have the sum he would have been entitled to on the first distribution, before any second dividend be made.

The trustees are required by the 17th section to give notice to all the creditors to come in and prove their debts, within a certain time, when the first dividend is to he made. Now, we have seen, that, by a subsequent section, if they neglect doing this before the first, they shall be received before the second dividend; but no provision of this kind is made in reference to the third. Taking these various enactments into view, we are satisfied, that creditors who neglect to prove their demands till after a second dividend, are precluded from all share of the debtor’s estate in the hands of the trustees. An opinion to this effect was expressed in Peck v. Randall, (1 John. Rep. 174;) though the question does not appear to have been presented by the case.

This ground, would in the particular case before us, preclude the claim of all who became creditors after the attachment issued. But we have no hesitation, on this head, in answering the question put to us by the trustees, on broader ground. We are of opinion that no person can be entitled to a dividend who was not a creditor at the time of the first publication of notice of the attachment, pursuant to the second section of the act.

Motion of the London creditors denied.