Case Name: Ebenezer Comstock versus Jonathan Farnum, and Isaac Palmer, his Trustee
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1806-09
Citations: 1 Tyng 96
Docket Number: 
Parties: Ebenezer Comstock versus Jonathan Farnum, and Isaac Palmer, his Trustee.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 2
Pages: 94–95

Head Matter:
Ebenezer Comstock versus Jonathan Farnum, and Isaac Palmer, his Trustee.
Evidence collateral to the answer of a trustee under the statute of February 28, 1795,'respecting absconding debtors, is not to be admitted.
The answer of Palmer, the trustee in this case, was, in substance, that he had given to Farnum, the principal defendant, before the service of the summons, for a consideration that was not questioned, two several notes of hand, amounting in the whole to 300 dollars, which were payable in horses at a day certain, after the service of the summons. The trustee further stated, that he had understood by common report, and that it was spoken of as a matter of general notoriety in the place where both the parties live, that the said notes had been assigned to a third person for a valuable consideration before he, the trustee, was summoned in this action. But he had no actual knowledge of such assignment.
Noble,
for the plaintiff, was going to argue that the trustee was chargeable in the facts stated on his answer, and was stopped by the Court.
Dewey,
in behalf of the trustee, moved the Court for leave to produce collateral evidence, other than the answer of the trustee, to prove that the notes were actually assigned to a stranger previously to the service of the summons in this action, and that Comstock, the present plaintiff, had notice of such transfer; and *he cited the case of Perkins vs. Parker. And, to [ * 97 ] show that the Court will protect the interest of an assignee of a chose in action not assignable at law, he cited the case of Legh vs. Legh.
Mass. Term Rep. 117.
1 Bos. & Pul. 447.

Opinion:
Parsons, C. J.,
said the rule in equity was, that an assignment of a chose in action, not negotiable, imposes no duty on the debtor to the assignee until notice of such assignment is given him.
The question whether a person summoned as trustee of an absconding debtor shall be held or not, is always decided by the facts disclosed in the trustee's answer. This appears expressly to be the contemplation of the framers of the statute, and collateral evidence has never been admitted.
By the Court.
Palmer must be adjudged the defendant's trustee, as the horses he had contracted to deliver him at a then future day come within the description of specific articles considered in the statute as credits liable to attachment in the hands of a trustee.
United States vs. Langton & Trustees, 5 Mason, 280.— Haines & Al. vs. Langton & Al. 8 Pick. 67.— Barker vs. Taber & Trustee, 4 Mass. Rep. 81.— Stackpole vs. Newman, 4 Mass. Rep. 85.—Hatch vs. Smith, 5 Mass. Rep. 49.— Minchin vs. Moore, 11 Mass. Rep. 90.— Whitman vs. Hunt, 4 Mass. Rep. 272.—Vide Stat. 1817, c. 149, § 1.