In re Leeds

15 F. Cas. 239, 1 Nat. Bank. Reg. 521, 6 Phila. 468, 1868 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 277

Opinion

CADWALADER, District Judge.

This case has been ably argued. Thep culiar character of the business in which the alleged bankrupt was engaged must be principally considered. He had no such stock in trade as would be swept away through the necessary or ordinary effect of an execution upon a judgment under a warrant of attorney. His real estate was, moreover, of sufficient value to constitute an available partial security for such a judgment. The former course of his transactions also shows that the purpose of the warrant of attorney, which constitutes one of the alleged acts of bankruptcy, may probably have been to enable him to continue his business. The application of much of the evidence would, in an ordinary case, therefore, be different from its application to the cáse before me. After some hesitation I have concluded that there was neither such an intended preference, nor such an intent to defeat or delay the operation of the bankrupt law, as to make this warrant of attorney a sufficient ground for the adjudication asked. The other alleged act of bankruptcy is a suspension of payment of his commercial paper for a period of fourteen days. I am now required to decide whether, in the absence of any fraud, such a suspension is an act of bankruptcy. This question has, in some cases, been heretofore submitted to me without argument. The decisions in other districts had been that the suspension of payment of such paper, though not fraudulent, was, if continued for this period, an act of bankruptcy. I was not prepared to make definitely such a decision. In the cases which were thus submitted without argument, I followed the decisions in the other districts; but stated on the record in every case, that the adjudication was not to be considered as a precedent. In the case now before me the question has been argued. In the mean time the point has been decided by Judge Field, in the district of New Jersey (In re Jersey City Window Glass Co. [Case No. 7,292]), somewhat differently from the decisions in other districts to which I have referred. My opinion is, that the suspension of payment, unless fraudulent, is not an act of bankruptcy, and that in this case it does not appear to have been fraudulent. The petition is dismissed, but without costs.