Court Opinion

ID: 9454027
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:33:00.845231+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:56.038358
License: Public Domain

LUMBARD, Chief Judge
(dissenting) :
I dissent. I would remand to the district court for a specific finding on whether Bookheim was “insolvent, or its insolvency imminent” at the time the mortgage was given.
The referee did not make such a finding because he wrongly believed that Section 15 would not apply if the transfer was made for a fair present consideration, and because he did not make this finding, his finding of “no intent to prefer” is also suspect. The district court did not repeat this error, but instead glossed over the referee’s failure by saying that his decision, “read as a whole, finds the corporation was not insolvent or in danger of imminent insolvency” when the mortgage was given. The court thought its finding was justified because the referee had believed the president of Bookheim when he said that he had no intention of going into bankruptcy at the time the mortgage was given. This is not enough to support the required finding on the question of insolvency.
The language of the statute is plain and unambiguous; there is no reason why the court should not make findings equally plain and unambiguous based upon the record or the findings of the referee.