Heard v. Sturgis
| Decision Date | 25 April 1888 |
| Citation | 16 N.E. 437,146 Mass. 545 |
| Parties | HEARD et al. v. STURGIS et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
H.W. Putnam, for plaintiffs.
The single question in the case is, did the plaintiffs, on August 5, 1875, have any estate or property assignable in bankruptcy in regard to this so-called "claim" for money under the bankrupt act of 1867, (U.S.Rev.St. § 5044?) Plaintiffs had no assignable right in 1875. At the time of their bankruptcy, in 1875, not only had congress not created any right in the plaintiffs to compensation, but it had legislated on the subject-matter of the Alabama claims and the Geneva award, and expressly left out all mention of war premiums, thereby negativing such right. The Geneva tribunal had thrown out, and the government had abandoned, the war premiums as claims against Great Britain, and congress had not enacted them into legal claims against the United States. They never have been valid rights against Great Britain. The Geneva award money was, from the very terms of the award itself, charged with no trust on their behalf; and no rights on their behalf against the United States, either technical or substantial, existed prior to June 5, 1882. The plaintiffs had in 1875, therefore, no right or property in regard to war premiums which would pass to their assignees in bankruptcy. The "Alabama Claims," so-called, are simply claims sounding in tort against Great Britain, and the gist of the tort is negligence, i.e., failure to exercise due diligence in regard to Confederate cruisers built in or sailing from British ports. The present case differs essentially from Leonard v. Nye, 125 Mass. 455. See Bachman v Lawson, 109 U.S. 659, 3 S.Ct. 479. The opinion of the court of commissioners of Alabama claims on this point is not an authority which in any way binds this court. Comegys v. Vasse, 1 Pet. 193; Leonard v. Nye, supra. The cases upon the question of assignability all make the distinction between an antecedent legal right possessing the vinculum juris, and a mere equitable claim. In re Webber, 18 Q.B.Div. 111; In re Wicks, 17 Ch.Div. 70; Gibson v. East India Co., 5 Bing.N.C. 262; Ex parte Hawker, 7 Ch.App. 214; Innes v. East India Co., 17 C.B. 351; In re Huggins, 21 Ch.Div. 85. To the same effect are the decisions that future wages under an engagement not yet entered into are not assignable. Mulhall v. Quinn, 1 Gray, 105; Twiss v. Cheever, 2 Allen, 40; Herbert v. Bronson, 125 Mass. 475. So claims that are merely personal, and not based on breach of contract, or on a tort to real or personal property, are not assignable even after verdict. Gray v. Bennett, 3 Metc. 522; Stone v. Railroad Co., 7 Gray, 539; Rice v Stone, 1 Allen, 566; Linton v. Hurley, 104 Mass. 353. The act of increasing the cost of plaintiffs' insurance (assuming for the purposes of the argument that the act is a tort at all, and that the increased cost is the natural and proximate result within the rules of the law) is not a tort to property, real or personal, nor a breach of contract. It is a personal injury, pure and simple, as much as defamation with special pecuniary damage to a man in his profession, boycott, strike, assault without battery, false imprisonment without personal contact, malicious prosecution malicious abuse of legal process, interference with a personal trade-mark, or any other similar case of pecuniary, without physical, injury. The right to recover pecuniary compensation for it (assuming the existence of such a right) is, therefore, as purely personal, and consequently non-assignable, as in those cases. Gray v. Bennett, supra; Lawrence v. Martin, 22 Cal. 174; Warren v. Thread Co., 134 Mass. 247; Rogers v. Spence, 13 Mees. & W. 571; Jordan v. Gillen, 44 N.H. 424; Sibbald's Estate, 18 Pa.St. 249; In re Sommer, 4 Serg. & R. 19; Gillan v. Gillan, 55 Pa.St. 430. See, also, Jones v. Clifton, 101 U.S. 225; Brandies v. Cochrane, 112 U.S. 344, 5 S.Ct. 194. Even an interest in tangible property or in a contract, in order to be assignable, must be a vested one, and not contingent, except as to a single contingency, to-wit, the death of the beneficiary,--which is sure to happen some time,--happening before a given event. Putnam v. Story, 132 Mass. 205; Ex parte Dever, 18 Q.B.Div. 660. Even when a legal right originally existed, if it has been forfeited, and subsequently the forfeiture has been waived or remitted, and bankruptcy has intervened between the forfeiture and the remission, the assignee does not take. Kiffridge v. McLaughlin, 33 Me. 327; Ward v. Webster, 9 Daly, 182. The authority of Leonard v. Nye, supra, is weakened by the case of Burnand v. Rodocanachi, 7 App.Cas. 333. See, also, Campbell v. Mullett, 2 Swanst. 551, 578. This court has already intimated very clearly that the line must be drawn somewhere, and that there is a degree of remoteness which shall be a barrier against even an assignee in bankruptcy. See Putnam v. Story, 132 Mass. 205; Nash v. Nash, 12 Allen, 345; Putnam v. Gleason, 99 Mass. 454.
M. & C.A. Williams, for defendant.
We say that this money should be retained by the assignees, and that the case is governed by Leonard v. Nye, 125 Mass. 455, (cited in Jones v. Dexter, Id. 469, and in Brigham v. Insurance Co., 131 Mass. 319,) and by the following cases: Bachman v. Lawson, 109 U.S. 659, 3 S.Ct. 479; Comegys v. Vasse, 1 Pet. 193; Erwin v. U.S., 97 U.S. 392; Pierce v. Stidworthy, 9 Atl.Rep. 617; Grant v. Bodwell, 78 Me. 470, 7 Atl.Rep. 12; Phelps v. McDonald, 99 U.S. 298; Opinion Court Commissioners Alabama Claims, (FRENCH, J.,) in Rules and Opinions of Commissioners upon Bankruptcy Question No. 13. We contend that there is no distinction or difference in principle between the said two classes of claims. The opinion in Burnand v. Rodocanachi, 7 App.Cas. 333, is in conflict with the settled line of decisions in this country, and is, morever, in direct conflict with the views expressed by Lord Chief Justice COLERIDGE, whose decision in this very case was overruled by the court of appeals. See 5 C.P.Div. 424. We contend that there is no difference in principle between claims of the first class for direct losses, which alone were dealt with by the act of 1874, and claims of the the second class, which in common with claims of the first class, were provided for by the act of 1882, and that therefore the decisions above cited apply with the same force to one class of claims as to the other. And we say that the cases in our own courts, and not the English case of Burnand v. Rodocanachi, must govern this question. See opinion of FRENCH, J., above cited, which expressly denies the authority of the English case, and the reasoning on which it is based. But suppose the case of Burnand v. Rodocanachi is to govern the case at bar, and suppose, if you will, that the distribution of this money by the United States was "a pure gift," (which could not be claimed as of right by any person,) what then follows? Why, if the distribution of the award was a pure gift, then the court of commissioners of Alabama claims' sole and only duty was to determine who were the donees intended by the act of 1882. If the distribution of the money was a pure gift, then the judgment of that court giving it to these defendants was conclusive that they were the donees intended by the act; and, it being a gift, the case of Burnand v. Rodocanachi shows that these plaintiffs have no right to require these defendants to pay it over to them. Apart from the cases, we submit there is no difference in principle between claims of the first class and claims of the second class. See the case of the United States to be laid before the tribunal of arbitration, to be convened at Geneva, published by authority of the United States, page 476, Mess. & Doc. Dept. of State, pt. 2, vol. 3, p. 187. See protocols 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 of the tribunal, (Mess. & Doc. Dept. of State, pt. 4, vol. 4.) That the United States intended to include claims for war premiums in the treaty is shown by the treaty itself. Treaty of Washington, arts. 1, 2. An examination of the act of 1882, and a comparison of that act with the prior act of 1874, will show that claims for war premiums were regarded by congress as claims of right exactly as much as the so-called direct claims. Act 1882, 22 St. at Large, c. 195; act 1874, 18 St. at. Large, c. 459.
The plaintiffs in this case are parties who paid enhanced premiums for insurance on war risks in 1861-65. The defendants are their assignees in bankruptcy under an assignment made in 1875. They have received money from the United States according to a decision of the court of commissioners of Alabama claims under the act of congress of June 5, 1882, in respect of the war premiums paid by the plaintiffs, and the question is whether they are entitled to hold that money under the assignment, which it will be noticed was made before the act was passed by force of which the money was paid by the United States.
It is settled that the adjudication of the commissioners is not conclusive between the parties. That adjudication only decides upon the amount and validity of the claim as against the United States, sets apart and identifies the fund for the benefit of whoever ultimately may prove entitled to it, under the proper construction of the statute, and leaves the rights of all persons claiming to be entitled to the sum awarded to the ordinary course of proceeding in the established courts. Leonard v. Nye, 125 Mass. 455, 466; Comegys v Vasse, 1 Pet. 193, 212. The court of commissioners have expressed and acted on this view of the law. McLean v. U.S., Davis' Report of Decisions of Commissioners, 112, 44th Cong.2d Sess., (Senate Ex.Doc. 21;) the Bankruptcy Question, March, 1884, in Rules, Opinions, etc., of C...
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