Court Opinion

ID: 6642077
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-20 20:46:35.063579+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:59:16.988225
License: Public Domain

FIELD, District Judge.
I concur with the register in the opinion that where a member of a late co-partnership files his individual petition, under the bankrupt act, and inserts in his schedules debts contracted by said co-partnership, and there are no partnership assets to be administered, he will be entitled to be discharged from all his debts, individual as well as co-partnership, and that it is not necessary to make the other partners parties to the proceedings, or to have them brought in under general order number eighteen.
I have examined the two cases referred to before Judge Blatchford, and I am not sure that there is any conflict between them. In the case of In re Little, [Case No. 8,390,] the petition was filed by a member of an existing partnership, the schedule of debts showed that a large portion of the debts were co-partnership debts, and the inventory of assets showed that part of the assets was co-partnership property. The judge, therefore, considered the petition as, in fact, a petition to have the firm declared bankrupt on the petition of one of its partners. The application was to amend the petition by joining Dana, the other partner, with him in the proceedings; and the court, very properly, allowed the amendment to be made. It is true in giving his opinion the judge said, that until the other partner, Dana, was brought in, Little could not be discharged from the debts of the firm, because the theory and intent of section thirty-six of the act and of general orders number's sixteen and eighteen, are, that the creditors of a firm should be required to meet but once, and that all questions in regard to the bankruptcy of the firm, and the administration of the assets of the firm, were to be determined in one bankruptcy forum. Now it is very evident that this reasoning would not apply to a case where the inventory did not include any assets of the firm, and where there were no assets of the firm to be administered.
In the other case referred to, that of In re Frear, [Case No. 5,074,] the petitioner filed his individual petition, praying that he might be discharged from all his debts, provable under the bankrupt act. The schedules annexed to the petition showed that the petitioner was also a member of a late co-partnership which was dissolved some *6time before the filing of the petition, and that a large number of the debts were co-partnership debts. The question before the register, was whether a co-partnership debt could be proved. The register held that it could, and that the petitioner would be entitled to a discharge from all his debts, co-partnership as well as individual. Now, if the judge had thought that the register was wrong in this view of the case, he would certainly have said so. But he does not say so. All he says is: ‘‘The debt in question is provable, whether there are any assets of the co-partnership or not. If there are any such assets, they must be administered according to the provisions of section thirty-six of the act, and so must the assets of the separate estate of the bankrupt.” From all which I infer the opinion of the judge to be that, when there are no assets of a co-partnership to be administered, a member of a late co-partnership may, upon his individual petition, be discharged from all his debts, co-partnership as well as individual. In this opinion I concur, and this is as far as it is necessary for me to go in order to dispose of the present case.