Court Opinion

ID: 8632578
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-24 19:39:57.260396+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:55:49.345631
License: Public Domain

GILES, District Judge.
The register, R. Stockett Mathews, Esq., to whom the case was referred, has certified into court several .questions growing out of the following brief statement of facts. The firm of Chapman, Lyons, Smith & Co. hold two promissory notes, drawn by the firm of Shipley, Roane & Co., one for four thousand two hundred and seventy-eight dollars and sixteen cents, due 6th January, 1870, and the other for four thousand one hundred and twenty-eight dollars and sixty-eight cents, due 22d January, 1870. They were payable to Geo. W. How-' ard, and by him indorsed, and they were also indorsed by' the firm of Howard, Cole & Co., of which firm Geo. W. Howard was a member. Before the said notes reached maturity, Geo. W. Howard and the firm of Howard, Cole & Co. were decreed bankrupts. The firm of Shipley, Roane & Co., being in embarrassed circumstances, offered to compromise with their creditors upon the payment of forty cents on the dollar, and the said firm of Chapman, Lyons, Smith & Co. and other creditors of said bankrupt, asked of this court permission to accept the said proposition without prejudice to. their claims against the said bankrupt, which was granted. And the said firm of Chapman, Lyons, Smith.& Co. received of Shipley, Roane & Co. forty per cent, on the amount of their said notes.
On these facts three questions are certified to the court; I state them in the order in which they naturally arise.
First. On what amount will the firm of Chapman & Co. be permitted to receive a dividend from the bankrupt estate. Clearly, only on the amount of the said notes, after deducting the forty per cent, received from Shipley, Roane & Co. The second and third questions are really but one in fact, and I shall answer them together. Although by the 36th section of the bankrupt act, where partners in trade shall be adjudged' bankrupts, all the joint property of the partnership, and also all the separate estate of each of the parties shall be taken; yet, in the administration in bankruptcy, the joint and separate estates are considered as distinct estates. This is perfectly clear by the rule laid down for their administration in the said section. It has therefore been held that a joint creditor having a security upon the separate estate, is entitled to prove against the joint estate without giving up his security. He would, therefore, by the same principle, be allowed to prove his whole claim against both estates and receive a dividend from each, but so as not to receive more than the full amount of his debt. In this case, the firm of Chapman & Co. can prove the amount of said notes (with the deduction of the forty per cent.) against both the private estate of Geo. W. Howard, and the partnership assets of Howard, Cole & Co., and receive dividends from both, the assignee taking care that from both the creditor firm does not receive more than full satisfaction of its claim. I concur, therefore, fully in the opinion which the register has sent up in this case.