Case Name: ROGERS v. PELL et al.
Court: New York Supreme Court, General Term
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1895-07-26
Citations: 35 N.Y.S. 17
Docket Number: 
Parties: ROGERS v. PELL et al.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's New York Supplement
Volume: 35
Pages: 17–19

Head Matter:
(89 Hun, 159.)
ROGERS v. PELL et al.
(Supreme Court, General Term, Second Department.
July 26, 1895.)
Assignment for Benefit of Creditors — Corporation — Assignment by President to Himself.
Where a president of a corporation is authorized by its directors to execute to a proper person an assignment for the benefit of its creditors, an assignment to himself is void. Brown, P. J., dissenting.
Action by Asa L. Rogers, as assignee for the benefit of creditors of the Rogers Manufacturing Company, against Charles E. Pell and others, to recover damages for the alleged conversion of certain lumber. The court directed a verdict in favor of plaintiff, and subsequently granted defendant’s motion for a new trial, and dismissed the complaint, and plaintiff moves for a new trial on exceptions ordered to be heard at general term in the first instance. Denied.
Argued before BROWN, P. J., and DYKMAN and PRATT, JJ.
Stedman & Larkin, for plaintiff.
Andrew Shiland, Jr., for defendants Pell et al.
Cannon & Atwater, for defendants Thomson et al.
Kenneson, Crain & Ailing, for defendants Eppinger et al.

Opinion:
PRATT, J.
The assignment under which plaintiff claims is sought to be sustained by virtue of a resolution of the directors of a corporation, by which they authorized their president to nominate and execute to a proper person an assignment of all the property of the corporation. Thereafter he executed in the name of the corporation an instrument which purported to convey to himself as assignee' the property which was afterwards attached by the defendants. The validity of the instrument is attacked on various grounds, one of which is that under the resolution the president could not lawfully execute a conveyance to himself. It is also suggested that the power to select an assignee was not one which the directors could delegate. We think it clear that in the selection of an assignee the corporation had a right to the unbiased discretion of its officer. That could not be had when he occupied the antagonistic positions of grantee and the active agent of the grantor. What would have been the result had the resolution left nothing to his discretion, and designated the president as the assignee, we need not discuss. In that case it might be agreed that in substance the assignment was the work of the directors, and the president but a ministerial agent. But in the present case the assignment was the work of the president. WTe think the effort to vest the title in himself failed. It follows that the attachments were a valid levy on the property of the corporation, and that the order appealed from must be affirmed, with costs.
DYKMÁN, J., concurs.