Metropolitan Trust Company, Assignee v. Northern Trust Company

• Decision Date: 27 June 1895
• Docket Number: 9412--(176)
• Citation: 63 N.W. 1030,61 Minn. 462
• Parties: METROPOLITAN TRUST COMPANY, Assignee, v. NORTHERN TRUST COMPANY, Receiver
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

63 N.W. 1030

61 Minn. 462

METROPOLITAN TRUST COMPANY, Assignee, v. NORTHERN TRUST COMPANY, Receiver

Nos. 9412--(176)

Supreme Court of Minnesota

June 27, 1895

Application in the district court for Hennepin county by Henry Hill and others, copartners under the firm name of Hill, Sons & Co. for the appointment of a receiver of the property and estate of Mason H. Crittenden and Archie M Crittenden, individually and as copartners as M. H Crittenden & Son. From an order of the court, Hicks, J. appointing Northern Trust Company as such receiver, Metropolitan Trust Company, assignee of Mason H. Crittenden, insolvent, appealed. Affirmed.

A. C. Finney and Fred W. Reed, for appellant.

Wadsworth & Wadsworth, for Northern Trust Company and Hill, Sons & Co., respondents.

OPINION

BUCK, J.

This is an appeal by the Metropolitan Trust Company, as assignee of Mason H. Crittenden, from an order of the district court of Hennepin county appointing the Northern Trust Company receiver in insolvency of the property of Mason H. Crittenden and Archie M. Crittenden, copartners as M. H. Crittenden & Son.

This proceeding was instituted upon the petition of Hill, Sons & Co., as creditors of the firm of M. H. Crittenden & Son. The petitioners held the overdue note of that firm for the sum of $ 2,500, and charged in their petition for the appointment of a receiver in insolvency of the property of said debtors that Archie M. Crittenden was a general partner in the firm of M. H. Crittenden & Son prior to and at the time of the pretended voluntary assignment by Mason H. Crittenden, as the sole member of said firm, to appellant, and that such assignment of Mason H. Crittenden, on August 15, 1894, was invalid by reason of the failure of Archie M. Crittenden to join therein as a general partner, and that, therefore, such assignment gave a preference to the other creditors of the firm.

The principal issuable fact was the question of the partnership between Mason H. Crittenden and Archie M. Crittenden, and this involved the validity of the assignment by Mason H. Crittenden, as sole member of the firm. The debtors, Crittenden & Son, do not deny that they were partners at the time of the assignment, nor is it denied by any creditor. It is the assignee alone who asserts that the Crittendens were not partners.

We are of the opinion that the petition for the appointment of a receiver under the insolvency law states facts sufficient to constitute a cause or ground for such...