Crawford v. Halsey/Opinion of the Court

United States Supreme Court

124 U.S. 648

Crawford  v.  Halsey

Without undertaking to determine whether the court could properly entertain the motion for a new trial, and file an additional finding of facts, after the end of the term at which the judgment was entered, we decide that there is no error in the record as it now stands. The finding of the award of the amicable compounders, which appears both in the judgment as originally entered and in that finally recorded, must be taken as part of the findings of facts in the case; and the ruling of the court upon the right of Robert C. Crawford to contest the validity of the assignments must be taken in connection with the motion for a new trial which confined the objection to the assignment of April 7, 1874. As the court has found that there was an assignment to Parker as early as December 3, 1873, to which Robert C. Crawford, as one of the partners, was a party, and which was not within the prohibitions of the bankrupt law, it was clearly right to hold that he was not permitted to show that it was fraudulent as against his creditors. As to the assignment of April 7th, which was within two months of the date of the commencement of the proceedings in bankruptcy, the case might have been different. But as an assignment had been made before, which was valid both as against the assignees and Crawford himself, it was a matter of no importance that the one made afterwards was void under the bankrupt law. The rights of Crawford as purchaser of the claim were only those of the assignees in bankruptcy.

There can be no question here as to the fact of the assignment in December. That is settled by the finding of the court below, to the effect that 'the claim on which the suit is brought' was assigned. This disposes of all that is said in the brief of counsel as to the fact that the coffee, out of which the claim arose, had not been sold at the date of that assignment. As the assignment was made more than two months before the bankruptcy proceedings, it was not necessary that the assignees should be parties to the submission to arbitration. The title to the claim at the time of the bankruptcy was in Parker, and not in the bankrupts. Therefore nothing passed to the assigness, and there was nothing for them to submit. The judgment is affirmed.

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