Rockville Nat. Bank v. Latham

• Decision Date: 05 March 1914
• Citation: 88 Conn. 70,89 A. 1117
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: ROCKVILLE NAT. BANK v. LATHAM et al.

89 A. 1117

88 Conn. 70

ROCKVILLE NAT. BANK

v. LATHAM et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

March 5, 1914.

Appeal from Superior Court, Hartford County; William S. Case, Judge.

The Rockville National Bank appealed to the Superior Court from an order of the Probate Court approving Charles H. Latham as trustee in insolvency of the estate of Ralph A. Talcott. The Superior Court, Holcolm, J., and Case, J., sustained demurrers to each of two answers to the reasons of appeal, and, answers not being amended, rendered judgment revoking and setting aside the order appealed from, and the original appellees appeal. Affirmed.

The pleadings admitted by the demurrers show that on January 15, 1913, the appellee Ralph A. Talcott of East Windsor, a person engaged chiefly in farming and the tillage of the soil, lodged in the probate court for the district of East Windsor a voluntary assignment of his property for the benefit of his creditors; that the court assumed jurisdiction of the settlement of the estate as provided by law for the settlement of the estates of insolvent debtors, and, pursuant to our statute, approved the appellee Latham as trustee of the estate, and directed him to take possession thereof. The Rockville National Bank, an attaching creditor of Talcott, appealed from this order and, for reasons of appeal, assigned, in substance, that the statutes of this state conferring jurisdiction upon the probate courts in the settlement of the estates of insolvent debtors are superseded and suspended by the federal Bankruptcy Act now in force, that the probate court therefore had no jurisdiction over Talcott's estate under his assignment, and that the order appealed from is void.

William E. Egan and Henry J. Calnen, both of Hartford, for appellants.

Charles Phelps, of Rockville, for appellee.

PRENTICE, C. J. (after stating the facts as above). "The Constitution of the United States gives Congress power to establish uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States. At the date of the assignment to the plaintiff, such laws had been established. They covered, so far as respects the rights of the parties to the case at bar, the same field previously occupied by the insolvent laws of this state, and consequently they superseded them." This statement, taken from the opinion in Ketcham v. MacNamara, 72 Conn. 709, 711, 46 Atl. 146, 147 (50 L. R. A. 641), by the substitution of the words "appellee Latham" for "plaintiff," sums up the situation in the present case, and is decisive of the probate court's lack of power to make the order appealed from.

Starting with the premise, distinctly established by the case cited, that our statutes regarding the settlement of the estates of insolvent debtors comprise in the fullest sense an insolvent law, there is no escape from the conclusion that the probate court was without authority to entertain jurisdiction in the matter of this voluntary assignment in insolvency.

The federal Bankruptcy Act made provision for the insolvent's case, and prescribed a method to be pursued by him in securing, upon his initiative, an equitable distribution of his assets among his creditors. True he, as one engaged chiefly in farming and the tillage of the soil, could not be forced into bankruptcy; but the door of bankruptcy was open to him. The federal ...