Court Opinion

ID: 9419269
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:48:16.403364+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:23.760535
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Murphy,
dissenting:
Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Douglas and I cannot agree with the opinion of the Court. Section 75 (n) subjects to the exclusive jurisdiction of the bankruptcy court all property in which the petitioning farmer-debtor has any equity or right, “including, among others . . . the right or the equity of redemption where the period of redemption has not or had not expired, ... or where deed had not been delivered, at the time of filing the petition.” Conceding that respondents’ equity of redemption was cut off under Indiana law prior to the filing of their petition, the deed had not been delivered at the time of filing. Respondents thus come within the exact terms of § 75 (n), and the property should not have been struck from their schedules.
We have said that doubts in § 75 are to be settled in the debtor’s favor, and that it “must be liberally construed to give the debtor the full measure of. the relief afforded by Congress, lest its benefits be frittered away by narrow formalistic interpretations which disregard the spirit.and the letter of. the Act.” Wright v. Union Central Ins. Co., 311 U. S. 273, 279. But we are now told that the spirit and the letter of § 75 (n),-especially the phrase-“or where deed had-not been delivered,” -may be disregarded upon a *143“fair reading of the entire section” and a consideration of its legislative history, both of which, it is claimed, disclose that Congress did not intend the benefits of § 75 to extend beyond the expiration of the equity of redemption by force of state law, the above-quoted phrase being added, “apparently out of an excess of caution,” to provide for those states in which the equity of redemption survives until the delivery of a deed. If Congress so intended, its words were poorly chosen. Congress could easily have declared that bankruptcy jurisdiction does not survive the ex-tinguishment of the equity of redemption under state law, whether that extinguishment is accomplished by sale, confirmation, or the delivery of a deed. Instead Congress used the disjunctive “or”. That Congress did not so intend is clear from the legislative history of the Act. The true Congressional purpose was “to protect the farmer’s home and property, and at the same time to protect the creditor.” 1 This purpose is best achieved by giving effect to the precise words of § 75 (n). The farmer is given a chance to rehabilitate himself so long as he has any vestige of a right in the property, call it “bare legal title” or what you will. The creditor is protected because the value of the property remains, under adequate safeguards provided by the Act, as security for the debt. “There is no constitutional claim of the creditor to more than that.” Wright v. Union Central Ins. Co., 311 U. S. 273, 278.

 H. Rep. No. 1808, 74th Cong., lst.Sess., p. 2. See also S. Rep. No. 985, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 2.