Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/514

500 FEDERAL REPORTER. �in favcr of said L. & B. was obtained in good faith for money then due them; that the assigment of "Oregon Indian war claims" to the defendant Alberts was made and received in good faith, and that such claims were purchased and paid for by said Alberts for his own benefit, and without any intention to defraud the United States; and that said Griswold was not insolvent at the date of said mortgages, and the same did not amount to an assignaient of his property. �From the evidence it satisfactorily appears that the judgments confessed in the county court on January 6, 1879, in favor of Kelly and others, were procured and confessed by Griswold with the intent and for the purpose of delaying and hindering the plaintiff in the collection of its debt or claim against Griswold, and with the intent to defeat the priority of the United States as established in section 3466 of the Revised Statutes, (1 St. 515, 676,) which reads: �" "Whenever any person indebted to the United States is insolvent, or when- ever the estate of any deceased debtor, in the hands of the executors or ad- ministrators, is insuflacient to pay all the debta due from the deceased, the debts of the United States shall be first satisfied; and the priority hereby estab- lished shall extend as well to cases in which a debtor, not having sufiScient property to pay all his debts, malses a voluntary assignment thereof, or in which the estate and efifects of an absconding, concealed, or absent debtor are attached by process of law, as to cases in which an act of bankruptcy is com- mitted." �It also appears that Griswold, on December 31, 1868, filed his peti- tion in bankruptcy in the eastern district of New York, upon which he was adjudged a bankrupt, and on November 15, 1869, was dis- charged from his debts upon a settlement or compromise with his principal creditors in which he paid them about 33J per centum of his indebtedness ; and that at the making of the mortgages to L. & B. and H., D., and T., his property subject to execution, not includ- ing a portion of block 47, called the "Griswold Block," and block 38 in the town of Salem, and conveycd to James M. Adams by Griswold and wife on December 21, 1867, was worth not to exceed $25,000. �Assuming, then, that the mortgages to the defendants L. & B. and H., D., and T. are valid, these judgments, when docketed, operated to transfer to the creditors therein substantially all the property, ostensibly owned by Griswold, remaining after their satisfaction ; and if they can be considered as an "assignment," within the meaning of the statute, the priority of the plaintiff took effect from the date of such judgments, and as to all the property upon which they were a lien, subject to the prior valid liens of third persons. �It is well settled that section 3466 of the Revised Statutes does not ��� �