Case Name: FLEISCHNER v. BANK OF McMINNVILLE
Court: Oregon Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Oregon
Decision Date: 1898-10-24
Citations: 36 Or. 553
Docket Number: 
Parties: FLEISCHNER v. BANK OF McMINNVILLE.
Judges: 
Reporter: Oregon Reports
Volume: 36
Pages: 553–574

Head Matter:
FLEISCHNER v. BANK OF McMINNVILLE.
[54 Pac. 884, 60 Pac. 603, 61 Pac. 345.]
1. Dismissing Appeal — Filing Assignments oe Error — Practice.—Where the respondent has not heen materially affected by a failure to print the assignments of error in the abstract, as required by Buies 4 and 9 of the court (24 Or. 595), the omission may be excused on the explanation of appellant’s attorney that it was an oversight. A formal written motion for permission to correct the abstract, showing facts excusing the omission, is the usual and better practice, though an oral application at the hearing is permitted in this case.
2. Jurisdiction oe Equity — Validity oe Assignment. — A court of equity has j urisdiction to try and to determine the validity of a general assignment for creditors, and to appoint its receiver to assume control of the assigned property. Such property is not in custodia legis, whatever may be its position under a confessedly valid assignment.
3. Creditor’s Suit — Evidence oe Judgment. — Since a creditor cannot sue to set aside a debtor’s conveyance as fraudulent until he has acquired a lien on the property by j udgment or attachment, the record of an action which showed that such creditor had attached defendant’s goods, but did not show whether or not the attachment was prior to his suit to set aside the conveyances, is not competent evidence.
4. Creditor’s Suit — Issuance oe Execution. — The issuance and return of an execution is not a necessary preliminary to the right to maintain a creditor’s suit to set aside conveyances by the debtor and to uncover assets, whez-e the debtor is alleged to be insolvent.
5. Waiver oe Objection to Supplemental Bill. — Where the plaintiff in a . suit to set aside a conveyance as in fraud of creditors, based on an alleged attachment, filed a supplemental bill, averring that since the commencement of the suit he had secured j udgment again st defendant in his attachment action at law, and such supplemental bill was not objected to on the ground that it sought to maintain the suit on new facts which had occurred since the filing of the original bill, such objection was waived, and plaintiff was entitled to have the case considered on the allegations of the bill as supplemented.
6. Creditor’s Suit — Right to Fide Supi>lemental Bide. — 'Where a creditor» has commenced a suit to set aside fraudulent transfers by his insolvent debtor and to reach concealed assets, based on the lien acquired by an attachment in a law action, he is entitled as of right to file a supplemental bill showing that since commencing his creditor’s suit the attachment claim has been reduced to judgment.
7. Position oe Intervening Parties to Creditor’s Suit — Jurisdiction.— Creditors who intervene in- a suit to reach concealed assets become thereby-entitled to the protection of the court as much as if they had originally been parties, and the failure of j urisdiction as to the plaintiff will not affect the right of such intervenors to have the suit continue in order to accomplish its original purpose.
8. Evidence oe Fraudulent Conveyance. — The alleged consideration for mortgages executed by defendant to his wife and brother-in-law was a sum loaned by the wife nine years prior to the execution of the mortgages, and a sum advanced by the brother-in-law thirteen years before. No demand or payment had ever been made thereon, nor any account of them kept by defendant on his own books, nor in his annual invoices or statements to commercial agencies. Some time before the execution of the mortgages, defendant conveyed land to his wife almost equal in value to the alleged debt, and the brother-in-law had for years purchased goods from defendant, paying cash therefor. Held, that the conveyances were void, as in fraud of creditors.
9. Preferring Creditors — Void General Assignment. — Defendant, being on the verge of failure and pressed by creditors, voluntarily executed chattel mortgages to secure other creditors; and, on plaintiff immediately attaching the goods, defendant made a general assignment for creditors. One of the debts secured by the mortgages was also secured by defendant’s wife, who had property sufficient to satisfy it, so that the mortgage redounded to her benefit. At the time of executing the mortgages, defendant had discussed with his attorney the advisability of making an assignment. Held, that the mortgages were not a preferment of creditors in good faith, but that they were made in contemplation of the assignment, and were to be treated as a part of the same transaction, and therefore void.
10. Fraudulent Conveyances — Disposal of Proceeds by Receiver. — Where certain creditors in a suit against mortgagees, instituted, not for the benefit of general creditors, but to set aside certain mortgages executed by their debtor which are valid as between the parties, establish the invalidity as to them of such mortgages, the surplus proceeds of the mortgaged property, after satisfying complainants, may be paid to the mortgagees.
From Multnomah : Alfred F. Sears, Jr., Judge.
Mr. O. F. Paxton, for the motion.
Mr. J. C. Moreland, contra.

Opinion:
Decided 24 October, 1898.
On Motion to Dismiss Appeal.
[54 Pac. 884.1
Per Curiam.
This is a motion to dismiss the appeal for the reason that appellants have failed to specify the grounds of error relied upon for the reversal or modification of the decree appealed from, as required by Rules 4, 9 (24 Or. 595). The abstract was served and filed August 10 last, and respondents subsequently procured an extension of time within which to prepare and file their briefs, but before the extended period had expii'ed filed the motion in question to dismiss. When the matter was brought on for hearing, the counsel for appellants moved in open court for leave to amend the abstract by appending the assignments to error upon which the appellants intended to rely, and stated that the assignments had been omitted by oversight upon his part. A formal written motion, based upon affidavit, showing facts excusing the omission, is the usual and better practice. But the question presented is not jurisdictional, and the abstract being required in certain form, and containing certain matter for the benefit and assistance of the court, and to relieve it as much as possible from the labor of searching in many instances through cumbersome records, and to enable it to ascertain at a glance the errors relied upon, it may, under certain contingencies, be excused entirely, or the court may dismiss the cause for nonobservance of requirements touching it. Nevertheless all parties who can reasonably comply with the rules governing its preparation and service should be required to conform to them. The technical rule adopted in Cross v. Chichester, 4 Or. 114, and followed in State v. McKinmore, 8 Or. 207, requiring a party, who is desirous of perfecting his appeal by filing a new or amended undertaking, to make his application or file his motion for leave therefor before the motion to dismiss is brought on for hearing, has never been adopted or followed in so far as it concerns a compliance with the rules of the court. Indeed, it is doubtful if the rule otherwise obtains at this time : Mendenhall v. Elwert, 36 Or. 375 (52 Pac. 22). We are disposed to grant the leave to amend under the conditions recited, as the respondents have not been materially delayed or injured by the oversight of appellants' counsel, and the order will be made permitting the appellants to amend their abstract by appending thereto the assignments of error to be relied upon within five days from this date ; respondents to have twenty days thereafter within which to file their briefs. Motion Overruled.