In re Beauchamp

• Decision Date: 09 April 1900
• Docket Number: 348.
• Citation: 101 F. 106
• Parties: In re BEAUCHAMP et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

101 F. 106

In re BEAUCHAMP et al.

No. 348.

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

April 9, 1900

Daniel Greenbaum and Milton D. Greenbaum, for trustee in bankruptcy.

William A. Wheatley, for bankrupts.

MORRIS District Judge.

The facts in this case, briefly stated, are these: Henry C Beauchamp and Elizabeth Lippincott, as individuals and as partners trading as Beauchamp & Co., were adjudicated bankrupts on February 3, 1900, upon their voluntary petition. The schedules filed with their petition show partnership assets and liabilities, but no individual assets; but the bankrupts, in their petition, claim the exemption provided by the Code of Public General Laws of Maryland (article 83, Sec 8), out of the proceeds of sale of said partnership assets. Milton D. Greenbaum, the trustee, converted the estate into cash, and thereupon moved the court to rule that said bankrupts were not entitled to any exemption out of the partnership assets in his hands.

Article 83, Sec. 8, of the Code of Public General Laws of Maryland which is the act of 1861, c. 7, Sec. 1, provides that 'one hundred dollars worth of property of each defendant therein shall be exempt from execution * * * in any civil proceeding whatever'; and it is upon the language of this act that the attorney for the bankrupts relies. Though statutes allowing exemptions are liberally construed, the spirit of the act should govern; and I cannot, in the absence of an express decision by the court of appeals of Maryland construing the Maryland exemption law, extend its meaning to include partners. If the court of appeals of Maryland had decided that partners were entitled to their exemptions out of partnership property, it would be the rule of decision to be followed by this court; but in the absence of such decision the question must be determined upon precedent principle, and weight of authority. Partnership property is a trust fund for the payment of partnership creditors, and the interest of the partners is an interest in the surplus only. The unquestioned weight of authority supports this proposition. The partnership is dissolved immediately upon adjudication, and the individual members and their individual creditors have no claim until partnership debts are paid. In re Sauthoff, 16 N.B.R. 181, Fed. Cas. No. 12,380; In re Hughes, 16 N.B.R. 464, Fed. Cas. No. 6,842; In re Croft, 17 N.B.R. 324, Fed. Cas. No. 3,404; In re Stewart, 13 N.B.R. 295, Fed.Cas. No. 13,420; In re Corbett, 5 Sawy. 206, Fed. Cas. No. 3,220; In re Hafer, 1 N.B.R. 547, Fed. Cas.No. 5,896; In re Handlin, 12 N.B.R. 49, Fed. Cas. No. 6,018; In re Tonne, 13 N.B.R. 170, Fed. Cas. No. 14,095; In re Blodgett, 10 N.B.R. 145, Fed. Cas.No. 1,555; In re Boothroyd, 14 N.B.R. 223, Fed.Cas. No. 1,652; In...