Moyer v. Dewey

• Decision Date: 01 October 1880
• Citation: 26 L.Ed. 394,103 U.S. 301
• Parties: MOYER v. DEWEY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

103 U.S. 301

103 U.S. 301

26 L.Ed. 394

MOYER v. DEWEY.

October Term, 1880

ERROR to the Court of Appeals of the State of New York.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Samuel Hand and Mr. Matthew Hale for the plaintiffs in error.

Mr. James E. Dewey, contra.

MR. JUSTICE MILLER delivered the opinion of the court.

The complaint filed by the defendants in error in the Supreme Court of the State is in the nature of a bill in chancery against the plaintiffs in error and Clinton Eldredge. It charges that the complainants severally recovered judgments in the proper courts against said Eldredge, on which executions were issued and returned nulla bona. It then charges, giving the details of the transaction, that the defendants held certain real estate, the title of which was conveyed to them by Eldredge, without consideration and with intent to defraud his creditors. The defendants answer separately and deny the fraud. They also attempt to protect themselves under the discharge of Eldredge in bankruptcy, and as the only question cognizable in this court turns upon this part of the defence, which is more fully set up in the answer of Betsey Moyer than in that of Henry, so much of the answer as refers to this matter is here given verbatim:——

'And the said defendant, upon her information and belief, alleges that on or about the seventeenth day of August, 1868, at Buffalo, in the State of New York, the United States District Court held in and for the Northern District of the State of New York duly made an order and a decree discharging the defendant Clinton Eldredge of and from all his debts, of all of which proceedings in the said court in bankruptcy for such discharge the said plaintiffs and their said assignors, and each of them, had due notice; that the pretended indebtedness, if any such existed or ever did accrue, accrued prior to the filing of the petition of the said Clinton Eldredge for his discharge from such debts in the said United States District Court, and prior to the granting of such discharge, and that the said indebtedness and the said several claims, if any such exist or ever existed, were such as were provable against the estate of the defendant Clinton Eldredge in the proceedings in which said discharge was granted, and were not, nor was any part thereof, created in consequence of any defalcation as a public officer, or as an executor, administrator, guardian, or trustee, or while acting in any other fiduciary capacity, and he is, therefore, discharged therefrom, and from all liability thereon, and the said plaintiffs are precluded and debarred from enforcing or attempting to enforce the same.'

It will be observed that nothing is here said of an assignee in bankruptcy, nor of the right of the assignee, if one existed, to the property conveyed by Eldredge to the defendants in fraud of his creditors. The obvious purpose of this plea is to show that Eldredge's debts to the plaintiffs were discharged, and that they could not, therefore, maintain this suit on such indebtedness. Nor does it appear in any part of the record that the assignee's rights were considered by either the plaintiffs or the defendants, nor was he made a...