In Re Cummings

84 F. Supp. 65, 1949 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2608
District Court, S.D. California·Decided May 10, 1949·No. 44715·Published·Cited by 18 cases

Opinion

YANKWICH, District Judge.

Marjorie Ayres Cummings was adjudicated a bankrupt on January 15, 1947. Her schedules showed liabilities in the sum of $75,982.11 and no assets, except some exempt wearing apparel of small value and $150 in cash.

On May 14, 1947, Roy Rosen, a creditor, filed objections to discharge upon four grounds:

(1) That the bankrupt made false oaths in the proceedings in knowingly, fraudulently and intentionally testifying as to certain matters.

(2) That the bankrupt, with intent to conceal her financial condition, either destroyed or concealed or failed to keep books of account or records from which her financial condition and business transactions might be ascertained.

(3) That the bankrupt had concealed property belonging to her with intent to hinder, delay and defraud her creditors, and had fraudulently omitted to list in her schedule of assets certain real property held in trust for her.

(4) That within twelve months prior to adjudication of the bankrupt, the bankrupt had, with intent to hinder, delay and defraud her creditors, concealed property belonging to her by knowingly and intentionally continuing the trial of a certain divorce action, known as Marjorie Cummings v. Roland Cummings, pending in the Superior *67 Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles, and being No. D-312, 992, to a period in excess of six months from the date of her adjudication, for the express purpose of keeping any assets which she might obtain therein from the trustee and creditors. Bankruptcy Act, § 14, sub. c(l, 2, 4), 11 U.S.C.A. § 32, sub. c(l, 2, 4).

On December 8, 1947, George Gardner, the Trustee, filed a petition for an order requiring the bankrupt to turn over property which had been awarded to the bankrupt in an interlocutory decree of divorce dated September 25, 1947. Bankruptcy Act, § 70, sub. a(5), 11 U.S.C.A. § 110, sub. a(5).

On July 6, 1948, the Referee entered separate findings and orders denying the creditor’s objections to discharge and denying the Trustee’s turn-over petition.

In brief, the Referee found all the allegations of the objections to be untrue. More specifically, as to Objection 1, he found that, while the testimony as to certain matters was untrue, that it was not knowingly so. As to Objection 4, he found, as will appear further on in the discussion, that certain steps were taken by the bankrupt not to bring her pending divorce action to a hearing, but that her acts with relation to it did not constitute a fraudulent transfer or concealment of assets under the Act.

Such finding, in substance, was also made on the petition for a turn-over order.

Before me are petitions to review these orders.

In addition to full findings, we have, in this case, memoranda by the Referee in which he states the legal bases for his conclusions. This procedure, especially in complicated matters, is to be commended. For it makes the task of the reviewing court easier.

I.

The Order Granting Discharge.

The order refusing to- deny discharge because of alleged improper actions and concealments (Bankruptcy Act, § 14, sub. c(l, 2, 4), 11 U.S.C.A. § 32, sub. c(l, 2, and 4) on the part of the bankrupt presents, in the main, a question of fact, as to which the conclusion of the trier of facts is binding on us unless clearly erroneous. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, rule 52, 28 U.S.C.A. More, only abuse of discretion warrants interference with a Referee’s ruling on discharge. See, In re Freelove, D.C.Cal., 1947, 74 F.Supp. 666. No useful purpose could be subserved by reviewing, in detail, the testimony relating to the alleged failure to keep books (Cf. In re McNay, D.C. Cal., 1945, 58 F.Supp. 960), or the asserted misstatements of fact on which the trustee based his objection to discharge. The facts as to each of these objections were such that reasonable persons could reach different conclusions as to whether there was conduct warranting denial of discharge. The Referee is entitled not only to the full benefit of his own choice of contradictory versions of a transaction, but to his own inferences from even admitted facts. In re Christ’s Church, D.C. Cal., 1948, 79 F.Supp. 42, 45-46; Yankwich, Findings under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 1948, 8 F.R.D., p. 271, 290, and the cases cited in Footnotes 6 to 9, pp. 288-290; Grace Bros. v. C.I.R., 9 Cir., 1949, 173 F.2d 170; 177-178.

The acts of the bankrupt in relation to the divorce action which she had pending against her husband at the time her petition was filed, and her action in delaying its determination until more than six months after adjudication- — while referring to the first order under review, the objection to oischarge — do, in reality, involve the fundamental question of the second order, the requested turn-over of the property. They will, therefore, be covered by the comments to follow.

II.

The Order Refusing Turn-Over.

(A) The Nature of the Wife’s Interest in Community Property

The trustee sought a turn-over order of the property which came into the possession of the bankrupt, after adjudication, through the institution of her divorce proceeding before the adjudication, and which resulted in an interlocutory decree/ of divorce awarding her certain property of considerable value. The date of the interlocutory decree was September 25, 1947. The adjudication was made on January 15, 1947. The trustee based his claim on Section 70, *68 sub. a(5) of the Bankruptcy Act of 1938, 11 U.S.C.A. § 110, sub. a(5), which, among other things, gives the trustee title to certain properties vested in the bankrupt at the time of the adjudication or which become transferable, in whole or in part, by the bankrupt within six months after bankruptcy. 11 U.S.C.A. § 110, sub. a(5 and 8).

The position of the trustee stems from the contention that, as under the community-property law of California, the interest of the wife is vested (California Civil Code, Sec. 161a), the institution of the divorce proceeding to terminate the marriage relationship was, in effect, an action to partition the property, which culminated in the interlocutory decree, so as to pass the title to the trustee.

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In Re Cummings, 84 F. Supp. 65, 1949 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2608 (S.D. Cal. 1949).

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