Case ID: nys_26/html/0449-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "BARNARD, P. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

(73 Hun, 493.)
    CANDA et al. v. GOLLNER et al.
    (Supreme Court, General Term, Second Department.
    December 1, 1893.)
    Supplementary Proceedings—Transfer of Property.
    An assignment for benefit of creditors, made by a judgment debtor after an order for bis examination and in supplementary proceedings, violates the provision of the order forbidding all transfers or other dispositions of his property except such as is exempt.
    Appeal from special term, Kings county.
    Action by John M. Canda and John P. Kane against Ervin G. Gollner and Ada F. M. Gollner. Plaintiffs recovered a judgment against defendants for $329.38. Afterwards, an order was made for the examination of defendants in supplementary proceedings, containing the usual clause forbidding all transfers or other dispositions of the property of defendants except exempt property. Defendants afterwards made an assignment for benefit of creditors,' and from an order denying a motion to punish defendants for contempt in violating such order, plaintiffs appeal.
    Reversed.
    Argued before BARNARD, P. J., and DYKMAN, J.
    J. Woolsey Shepard, for appellants.
    Alfred R. Page, for respondents.
   BARNARD, P. J.

The plaintiffs recovered a judgment against Ervin G. Gollner and Ada F. M. Gollner in September, 1892, for $329.38. In October, 1892, an order supplementary to execution was obtained for the examination of the defendants in respect to their property. This order contained the usual words by which all transfers or other dispositions of the property of defendants except exempt properly was forbidden. After the order was served, the defendants severally executed and delivered an assignment of all their property, without preference, under the general insolvent assignment law. The plaintiffs made an application to punish the defendants for a contempt, based upon a disobedience of the supplementary order. This was denied; and this appeal presents the question whether a general assignment was a violation of the injunction contained in the supplementary order. It cannot be claimed but that the defendant violated the express words of the order forbidding the transfer. This violation was made by his voluntary act. The plaintiffs were injured by this act. They had taken steps by which they could have had the first lien on the estate, real and personal, of the judgment debtor. Code, § 2469; McCorkle v. Herrman, 117 N. Y. 297, 22 N. E. 948. The old chancery practice is abrogated. If it was not, the rule would not protect the party making an assignment, except such as was necessary to obtain a discharge under the insolvent laws of the state. A voluntary assignment has no such effect. An assignment to obtain a discharge from the debts of a petitioner, under our insolvent laws, is made by the order of the court, and the rule of the court of chancery was aimed at the impropriety of punishing a person for an act done under legal sanction, even when the proceeding was instituted by the debtor’s own petition. . The rule reserves the right to even enjoin such an assignment specially in an injunction. The Code, however, must govern, without regard to the chancery rule. The order should therefore be reversed, with costs and disbursements, and the defendant be adjudged guilty of a contempt of the order, with $10' costs.