Boggs Broom Corn Co. v. Saberton

29 F.2d 643, 1928 U.S. App. LEXIS 2766
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedNovember 26, 1928
DocketNo. 3958
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 29 F.2d 643 (Boggs Broom Corn Co. v. Saberton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Boggs Broom Corn Co. v. Saberton, 29 F.2d 643, 1928 U.S. App. LEXIS 2766 (7th Cir. 1928).

Opinion

ALSCHULER, Circuit Judge.

The Evansville Broom Company, a concern manufacturing brooms, was adjudged a bankrupt on a petition filed June 23,1925. It was insolvent on December 1, Í924, and was continuously insolvent thereafter, which appellant at all times well knew.

On December 1, 1924, bankrupt owed the appellant, a dealer in raw materials used in the manufacture of brooms, $50,828.50, and was hard pressed for materials for use in its factory and for cash to meet its pay roll. On that date the bankrupt wrote the appellant the following letter:

“If we will assign to your company good collectible accounts receivable sufficient to protect you against loss, will your company be willing to sell us such merchandise as may be required in our business and advance to us such amounts of cash as may be necessary to meet current bills accruing hereafter, as well as our payroll hereafter accruing?”

On December 2, appellant replied as follows:

“We acknowledge receipt of your letter of December 1, 1924, in which you propose to assign to us good collectible accounts receivable sufficient in amount to protect us against loss, if we sell you such merchandise as may be required by you in your business, and advance to you from time to time such amounts as may be required to pay current bills accruing hereafter and payrolls hereafter accruing, and you are advised that we have considered this proposition and are willing to do this on the basis indicated.

“At the time of placing orders with us, please forward to us good collectible accounts receivable sufficient to cover the amount of the order, and, at the time of requesting advancements to cover current bills and payroll, likewise send us good collectible accounts receivable to cover.”

Soon thereafter appellant began furnishing materials and cash to bankrupt, and from time to time took assignments of accounts receivable until April 17, 1925, when these transactions ceased. From December 2, 1924, to February 23,1925, the beginning of the four-months period, the cash and merchandise furnished amounted to $2,893.83 in [644]*644excess of accounts assigned, increasing the debt to the appellant to $53,722.33. In the same manner the debt increased by the end of February to $54,343.24, and by the end of March to $55,899.02.

Between April 1 and 15 the cash and merchandise furnished amounted to $446.25 and the accounts assigned to $63,6.41, the difference, $190.16, reducing the debt to $55,708.-86. Shortly after the letters of December 1 and 2 the appellant demanded other and additional security, and on January 20, 1925, wrote a letter to the bankrupt in which it said:

“Advise if you could arrange to give us the brooms that are made up for collateral to cover future shipments of materials and cash. About the only way this could be handled would be for you to put the brooms in a warehouse, and we would have to arrange with the warehouse company to release them on order, and you, in turn, could send us the assigned accounts to cover the shipments.”

Although the bankrupt had ample storage facilities of its own for the storage of brooms, from March 4, 1925, on, all the brooms it manufactured were day by day stored by the bankrupt in a warehouse in Evansville pursuant to this request. A negotiable warehouse receipt was issued against them, this receipt being taken in the name of appellant and indorsed by it to the general manager of' the bankrupt. The brooms were insured against loss by fire in the name of appellant upon its request, and the premiums on the policies were paid by it. None of these brooms were taken out of the warehouse until they were sold in April.

On April 15, 1925, a large order of the stored brooms was sold to the Parsons & Sco-ville Company at a discount much larger than the discount allowed on other sales about that time. The account arising from this sale, amounting to $6,261.31, was on that day assigned by the bankrupt to appellant, and payment of the account was made on April 22 by a cheek to the bankrupt, which was indorsed by it and mailed to appellant.

No delivery of merchandise or advancement of cash was made by the appellant on April 15, and none had been made between April 5 and 15. From April 1 to 5 there was one delivery of merchandise and one advancement of cash, and the amount of the Parsons & Seoville account was about three times the total amount of all cash and merchandise furnished at different times during the 30 days before the assignment.

The effect of the Parsons & Seoville transaction was to reduce the debt of the bankrupt to appellant to $49,447.55. Another assignment on the same date of $226.93 was followed by one advancement of cash and one delivery of merchandise, which brought the debt to $49,607.08. Of the accounts assigned between February 24 and April 17, $780.72 remained uncollected. Still the appellant realized from the assignments within the four-months period $3,334.53 in excess of the amount of merchandise delivered and cash advanced during that time.

Appellant filed a general claim for $49,-128.91. The referee found that appellant had realized from accounts assigned to it during the four-months period $7,912.67. From this he deducted the sum of $387.60, the amounts received by appellant in four instances in which the assignments were made substantially at the time the orders for merchandise and the requests for cash were made. The balance remaining, $7,525.07, he held to be a voidable preference, and ordered appellant’s general claim to be disallowed, unless or until it paid to the trustee this sum of $7,525.07.

On petition to review, the court approved the referee’s order. Appellant insists that the order was wrong, and that, to use the language of its brief:

“The agreement of the parties made more than four months before bankruptcy, and their conduct thereunder, evidence an intention to create an equitable assignment of and lien upon the bankrupt’s accounts receivable subsequently created. Hence, the pledge of such receivables within the four-months period must be related baek to the date of the agreement pursuant to which they were assigned.”

The only evidence of an agreement is found in the two letters above set forth, appellant claiming that they show a proposition and an acceptance of it; while appellee’s position is that the letter of December 2 was a counter proposition which was never accepted or acted upon. The words “on the basis indicated,” at the end of the first paragraph of appellant’s letter, do not appear to refer to what preceded them, because all that went before them was a recital of the bankrupt’s proposition, followed by the statement that appellant was “willing to do this.” Hence it is argued that the words “on the basis indicated,” if they have any force, refer to the plan indicated in the paragraph which follows. In that case the agreement was that the pledges were to be made as indicated in the last paragraph — that is, as orders for materials and cash might be given.

Whether assignments made as was here proposed and agreed upon, but within four months of the filing of a petition in bank[645]*645ruptcy, would be treated as preferences need not be considered, for the record shows plainly that the terms of this agreement were not followed, but were materially departed from in every instance, except possibly the four above mentioned, as to which the referee’s ruling is not questioned by either party.

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Bluebook (online)
29 F.2d 643, 1928 U.S. App. LEXIS 2766, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/boggs-broom-corn-co-v-saberton-ca7-1928.