In re Loveland

• Decision Date: 13 November 1912
• Docket Number: 988 (Original).
• Parties: In re LOVELAND.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

200 F. 136

In re LOVELAND.

No. 988 (Original).

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

November 13, 1912

Albert S. Woodman, of Portland, Me. (Woodman & Whitehouse and Robert T. Whitehouse, all of Portland, Me., and Wilfrid J. Gaffney of Boston, Mass., on the brief), for petitioner.

Linus C. Coggan, of Boston, Mass. (George L. Dillaway and Coggan &amp Coggan, all of Boston, Mass., on the brief), for respondent.

Before COLT and PUTNAM, Circuit Judges, and BROWN, District Judge.

BROWN District Judge.

This is a petition to revise in matter of law the proceedings of the District Court which led to the entry of the following order:

'It is hereby ordered and decreed that the order of the referee, denying the petition of the trustee that the bankrupt surrender to him a certain policy of life insurance, be, and it hereby is, reversed, and that the bankrupt surrender said policy to the trustee.'

The case proceeded both before the referee and the District Court upon an agreed statement of facts, which showed that the bankrupt, Loveland, had taken out a life insurance policy for $2,000 on the endowment plan; that the premiums had been paid to September 11, 1911; that the cash surrender value of the policy on March 31, 1911 the date of filing the petition in bankruptcy, deducting certain loans made thereon, was $269.04; that the bankrupt was notified of the ascertainment of the surrender value, and demand was made upon him by the trustee for the redemption of said policy upon payment of said surrender value.

'The bankrupt has not offered to redeem said policy, but claims the same to be exempt under the statute of Massachusetts. Subject to the objection of the trustee to its materiality, the following statement of Grace L. Loveland, wife of the assured and beneficiary named in the policy, was admitted in evidence. Mrs. Loveland has had possession of the policy from the beginning. She and her husband, the bankrupt, have both worked and turned in their earnings for the support of the family, without keeping any separate account or record of the same, and her average earnings since the taking out of the policy have been from $9 to $10 per week; that the bankrupt paid the first two premiums on the policy; that Mrs. Loveland, out of the money earned by her, paid four premiums on the policy, to wit, in 1904, 1905, 1907, and 1909, she turning over the money to her husband, the bankrupt, who personally paid the premiums; that the last two premiums and the premium of 1908 were paid out of the loans upon the policy itself; that out of the loans upon the policy $150 went for family expenses and bills.'

It is claimed that, in the absence of an allegation in the petition that the policy was in the possession of or under the control of the bankrupt, the District Court had no jurisdiction to enter a summary order requiring the bankrupt to surrender the policy to the trustee.

It is also contended for the present petitioner that, if title to the policy passed to the trustee, it passed subject to an equitable lien in favor of the bankrupt's wife for the amount of premiums paid out of her own property, to which lien the bankruptcy...