Tefft, Weller Company v. Julian Munsuri

• Decision Date: 04 December 1911
• Docket Number: No. 22,22
• Citation: 32 S.Ct. 67,222 U.S. 114,56 L.Ed. 118
• Parties: TEFFT, WELLER, & COMPANY et al., Appts., v. JULIAN MUNSURI
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

222 U.S. 114

32 S.Ct. 67

56 L.Ed. 118

TEFFT, WELLER, & COMPANY et al., Appts.,

v JULIAN MUNSURI.

No. 22.

Argued October 30 and 31, 1911.

Decided December 4, 1911.

Messrs. William G. Johnson and William H. Hawkins for appellants.

Messrs. George H. Lamar and Willis Sweet for appellee.

Mr. Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

We are of opinion that a motion made to dismiss this case must prevail, and we therefore state only the facts which are essential to the consideration of that subject.

In 1907, the commercial firm of 'Sucesores de Jose Hernaiz' was adjudicated an involuntary bankrupt. Tefft, Weller, & Company and those who are here conjointly appellants with that firm presented their claims against the firm, and they were allowed by the referee. In October, 1907, as the result of proceedings whose initiation it is unnecessary to consider, the court held that one Julian Munsuri was not a limited but a general partner of the bankrupt firm, and hence was generally liable for its debts. Munsuri subsequently moved the referee to vacate the allowance previously made of the claims which had been presented by the appellants, and to disallow said claims. This motion was based on alleged settlements of the claims which it was asserted had been made with Munsuri in 1903. The referee denied the motion because he concluded that the asserted settlements, although they had been in form made, had been procured by the fraud of Munsuri, and therefore were not binding. Munsuri, by petition for review, sought to reverse the action of the referee. The court, on February 9, 1909, passing on the petition for review, reversed the action of the referee. It was held that the settlements relied upon by Munsuri were binding. An order was made directing that the previous allowance of the claims be vacated, and that the claims be disallowed. Thereupon the court filed its 'findings of fact and conclusions of law,' which were recited to have been made 'in pursuance of general order in bankruptcy No. 36, p. 3.' The attorney for the creditors then petitioned for the allowance of an appeal to this court from the judgment and order 'whereby the referee's report denying the motion to disallow the claims of said creditors is reversed and set aside and the said claims are disallowed.'

At the time the appeal was allowed (the one which is now under consideration), assignments of error were filed assailing the action of the court in disallowing the claims, and the merit of these assignments has been elaborately insisted on in the argument at bar. As appellate jurisdiction over courts of bankruptcy is expressly provided for in the bankrupt law, including the cases or classes of cases in which this court has authority to review the action of courts of bankruptcy, we must turn, at least primarily, to that act in order to test the correctness of the motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction which has been made. Now, the subject of the power to review the orders of bankruptcy courts disallowing claims in bankruptcy proceedings is in express terms provided for by the bankrupt act in § 25a as follows:

'Appeals and Writs of Error.—a. That appeals and equity cases may be taken in bankruptcy proceedings from the courts of bankruptcy to the circuit courts of appeals of the United States, and to the supreme court of the territories, in the following cases, to wit . . . (3) From a judgment allowing or rejecting a debt or claim of five hundred dollars or over. Such appeal shall be taken within ten days after the judgment appealed from has been rendered, and may be heard and determined by the appellate court in term or vacation, as the case may be.' [30 Stat. at L. 553, chap. 541, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 3432].

This express provision for the exercise of appellate jurisdiction by the courts therein named over the case here presented by necessary implication must be held to exclude the right of this court to exercise appellate jurisdiction over a subject not delegated unless some other provision of the statute compels to a contrary view. But instead of tending to so do, the context of the statute adds cogency to and makes irresistible the implication arising from the provision of 25a, above quoted. This result flows from the careful provision otherwise made by the statute for the exercise of appellate jurisdiction by this court over proceedings in courts of bankruptcy, or the orders, judgments, and decrees rendered by such courts, none of which embrace the character of case here presented. Indeed, when the context of the statute is considered and the distribution of appellate jurisdiction for which it provides is taken into view, it becomes certain that to extend by remote implication, based upon conceptions of inconvenience, the reviewing power of this court to a subject like the one now in question, would destroy the symmetry of the law, and would render necessary limitations on the power of this court to review as to important subjects concerning which the power would otherwise obtain.

See 25b, paragraphs 1 and 2, defining the appellate power of this court in certain cases, and see also the right to certify questions to this court, and the authority conferred on this court to allow writs of certiorari, conferred in § 25d, as well as authority conferred by 24a, to which we shall hereafter advert. We might well leave the sufficiency of the motion to dismiss to rest upon these conclusive considerations, but we nevertheless briefly refer to the contentions pressed in argument to the contrary.

1. The main reliance is upon § 24a, which, it is virtually insisted, controls the other provisions of the statute, and therefore confers...