In re Logan

• Decision Date: 01 June 1900
• Parties: In re LOGAN.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Kentucky

102 F. 876

In re LOGAN.

United States District Court, D. Kentucky.

June, 1900

Thomas R. Brown, for objecting creditors.

EVANS District Judge.

The adjudication in this case was made in June, 1899. On the 21st day of the following October the bankrupt filed his petition for a discharge. Subsequently, and in due season, a creditor entered his appearance for that purpose, and filed specifications of objections to the discharge. The bankrupt filed no further pleading. The matter was referred to the referee, as permitted under the last clause of general orders in bankruptcy No. 12, to 'ascertain and report the facts (90 F. vii, 32 (C.C.A. xvi.), ' and that officer, having taken the testimony, reported in favor of granting the relief asked. The grounds of objection to the discharge, as specified, were, in substance: First, that the bankrupt had knowingly and fraudulently concealed and omitted from his schedule certain assets, namely, the indebtedness to him of small sums from certain creditors; and, second, that he had in his original examination in writing before the referee at the first meeting of creditors sworn falsely in respect to the same matters. In the proceedings before the referee the creditors offered in evidence the original examination of the bankrupt, but the referee sustained the objection of the bankrupt to that testimony upon the ground that the latter was 'entitled to be examined with reference to the pending issues if his testimony was to be used either for or against him upon this question. ' This ruling, we think was correct, as it is certainly true that the bankrupt had a right to exemption from any harmful consequence from his examination at the first or other meetings of his creditors under the protection tendered by the last clause but one of section 7 of the act. The creditor had specified as one of the grounds of objections to the discharge that the bankrupt had sworn falsely in that examination; but, after a very careful consideration of the question, we have lately ruled in the case of In re Marx, 102 F. 676, that, under the section of the act referred to, this could not be successfully made a ground for opposing a discharge. It is insisted by the creditor, inasmuch as the bankrupt made no response to the specifications of objections to the discharge, that the charges made by the creditors should be taken as confessed; and we are cited to Loveland Bankr. Sec. 281, in support...