Case ID: mass_1/html/0150-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

William Proctor versus William Moore.
    Statutes of bankruptcy of one of the United States do not bind persons not inhabitants of that state unless the contract was there made.
    This was an action of assum/psit upon two promissory notes, made by the defendant to the plaintiff, dated the 16th day of January, 1798, one of which was payable the first day of March, and the other the first day of April next after the date; and the declaration alleged that the notes were made at A., in this county.
    The defendant pleaded in bar that, at the time of making the notes declared on, and from thence until the first day of August, in the same year, he was an inhabitant of the state of Connecticut, and that, upon his petition to the legislature of that state, bearing date the 11th day of April, 1798, the said legislature did, at their session begun and holden the second Tuesday of May, in the same year, pass a special resolve that, if the defendant should, on or before the first day of August then next, deliver up, upon oath, to A, B, and C, trustees in the said resolve named, all his property (except such articles of clothing and household furniture as in the opinion of said trustees should be necessary for the defendant and his family) in trust, for the benefit of the defendant’s creditors, in proportion to their respective demands, he, the said * defendant, should be and- thereby was discharged from all debts due and owing from him at the date of his said petition ; that the said trustees were thereby directed, as soon as it could conveniently be done, and as soon as the defendant should have delivered and conveyed to them as aforesaid his estate, (they being first qualified by oath,) to give public notice, for three weeks successively, in certain newspapers (mentioned) printed in that state, in the state of Massachusetts, and in the city of New York, of their appointment as aforesaid, and that the defendant had conveyed to them his estate as aforesaid; and, as soon as said trustees should have received said estate, disposed of, and received the money for the same, they should, in the newspapers aforesaid, give public notice thereof, and appoint a time and place at which they would attend upon the creditors to adjust their respective demands upon the defendant, and to pay to them their respective proportion of such money, &c. The plea then averred that the trustees accepted, and • were qualified, &c., and that the defendant afterwards, on the 3d day of May, in the same year, at Hartford, in the state of Connect icut, viz., at C., in the county of Middlesex aforesaid, did assign on oath all his property, as required by said resolve, to the said trustees; and concluded with a verification.
    There was a replication to the plea, a demurrer to the replication, and joinder in demurrer.
    
      T. Bigelow and Joseph Locke for the plaintiff.
    
      Parsons and Z. B. Adams for the defendant.
   The Court, (Dana, C. J., Sedgwick, Sewall, and Thacher, justices,) without hearing any argument, were clearly and unanimously of opinion that the plea in bar was bad. They said it did not appear by the plea that the contract was made in the state of Connecticut, nor that the plaintiff was an inhabitant of that state at the time the contract was made, and unless he was, the resolve could not oind him, which they had repeatedly decided; nor was it stated that the trustees had given the notice * required by the resolve; nor was it sufficiently averred that the defendant had transferred his property to the trustees. The plea ought to have shown what the property was, whether real or personal estate, or both, and specially stated the mode of transfer, that the Court might see whether it were sufficient; for which reasons

Judgment for the plaintiff.

Note. — It was decided in the Supreme Court of the state of New York that a dis charge under an act of the legislature of Bhode Island was no bar to an action brought in that court upon a note made in Massachusetts. — Smith vs. Smith, 2 John. 235.-[Bradford vs. Farrand, 13 Mass. 19. — Ed.]