Thatcher v. Rockwell/Opinion of the Court

by Morrison Waite

United States Supreme Court

105 U.S. 467

Thatcher  v.  Rockwell

By the exceptions to the charge a Federal question is undoubtedly presented upon the record. The court was asked to decide that the proceedings in bankruptcy were a bar to the further prosecution of the suit in the name of the bankrupt. This was refused, and the jury were told that they might bring in a verdict for the plaintiff notwithstanding the bankruptcy, if they found in his favor on the other issues, and the claim had been assigned, as alleged in the replication, more than four months before the etition in bankruptcy was filed. We must, therefore, overrule the motion to dismiss, but what the court did was so clearly right, that we are not inclined to retain the cause for further consideration on its merits. An assignment in bankruptcy only transfers to the assignee such property as the bankrupt had when the petition in bankruptcy was filed. If in point of fact the claim in suit had been transferred by the bankrupt more than four months before the proceedings in bankruptcy were begun, the assignee in bankruptcy had no interest whatever in the suit that was pending, because, from the time of the transfer the transferees became entitled to the benefit of any recovery that might be had.

The suit, though in the name of the bankrupt, was in fact for and on account of the transferees, whose trustee the bankrupt became when the transfer was completed.

The further charge of the court to the effect that if the assignee expressly consented that the bankrupt might continue to prosecute the suit in his own name, the defendants could not avail themselves of the bankruptcy as a defence, was also right. By sect. 5047, Rev. Stat., the assignee may prosecute or defend suits pending in the name of the bankrupt at the time of the bankruptcy, but there is nothing which renders it necessary for him to make himself a party on the record to do what is thus allowed. What was said in Herndon v. Howard (9 Wall. 664) must be construed in connection with the case then under consideration, which was an application by an assignee to be substituted in this court for the original appellant, who had become bankrupt after the appeal was taken. The true rule is stated in Eyster v. Gaff, 91 U.S. 521; Burbank v. Bigelow, 92 id. 179; Norton v. Switzer, 93 id. 355; Jerome v. M'Carter, 94 id. 734; M'Henry v. La Soci et e Francaise, &c., 95 id. 58; and Davis v. Friedlander, 104 id. 570. These cases, although the bankrupt happened to be a defendant, establish the doctrine that under the late bankrupt law the validity of a pending suit, or of the decree or judgment therein, was not affected by the intervening bankruptcy of one of the parties; that the assignee might or might not be made a party; and whether he was so or not, he was equally bound with any other party acquiring an interest pendente lite. It is no defence to the debt that the creditor has become a bankrupt; and if an assignee, after notice, permits a pending suit to proceed in the name of the bankrupt for its recovery, he is bound by any judgment that may be rendered. This is a sufficient protection for the debtor.

The motion to dismiss is denied, but that to affirm

Granted.

Notes