Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/221

214 FEDERAL REPORTER. �last case the assignees were advised by able counsel, with my approval, to settle on the best terms they could obtain, rather than press the appeal which they had taken to the supreme court. Then came th« act of 1874, § 6, (18 St. 179,) which added another exception, that in an involuntary case the set- oif should not be made if the debt "was bought after knowledge of the act of bankruptcy, and with a view to such set-off, •which clinched the argument as to the expression of the exceptions intended to be made. Lloyd y. Turner, 5 Sawyer, 463. In the case at bar the debt was sold and the bank- ruptcy occurred before the statute of 1874 was passed. �But, whichever way this point should be decided, the defend- ants were free to sell their notes to any one who would buy them, whetherthat purchaser could or could not use them in set-off. If he could so use them there was no wrong done ; if he could not, there was (as Judge Shepley very properly decided) no in jury. �Besides, this application is made more than four yeara after the demurrer was sustained, and more than a year after the case in Ohio was decided, and more than four years after an original action by the plaintiffs, as assignees, was barred by limitation. The reason for much of the delay appears ta have been the pendency of the action against Cady & Co. This was a sound prudential reason why the assignees should not care to prosecute this suit, because they could have but one reoovery, and might be wasting the assets ; but it was not a legal reason between plaintiff and defendant, because they were bound to find out, as other litigants do, which suit they should prosecute, and to prooeed diligently with that. �Motion to amend denied. Bill dismissed, without costs. ����