Satterlee & Satterlee v. Ten Eyck

New York Supreme Court

Satterlee & Satterlee v. Ten Eyck

7 Cow. 480

CourtNew York Supreme Court

DecidedOctober 15, 1827

StatusPublished

Cited by4 cases

This text of 7 Cow. 480 (Satterlee & Satterlee v. Ten Eyck) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

Satterlee & Satterlee v. Ten Eyck, 7 Cow. 480 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1827).

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Opinion

Curia.

True, we look to the real interest of the parties; and protect the rights of assignees of choses in action, as far as this can be done consistently with the forms of law. The party who comes to set off a judgment need not show that it was obtained in his name. It is enough that he be the assignee. But he must be really so; and not the mere agent or trustee of another. He must be the absolute owner, holding the beneficial control, or he cannot set off. Here is no less a judgment against the sheriff, because Aikin has chosen to indemnify him. Even had the sheriff obtained a judgment in his own name against the Satterlees, he could not set it off after assigning it to Aikin: much less, where the judgment is neither nominally nor beneficially his own. In these cases, the inquiry must be, what is the interest of the party on record ? If it be nothing, there is nothing to set off If we allow bail, sureties and indemnitors to come in with their judgments, where are we to stop ? . They are not parties before us. That' it is not enough to show a mere formal assignment, we held in Gilman v. Van Slyck this very term. In that case, the [482]*482form, of the purchase was well enough; but it was not bona fide, and absolute. The bona fides with which a set-off is created, is always a legitimatesubject of inquiry. *Fair v. M'Iver, (16 East, 131,) is a strong case to show this. The set-off there was under the statute. The subject of it was "a debt which the bankrupt was bound to pay; but because it was created in fraud of a contract to pay in a bill, it was disallowed. The difficulty in the case before us, however, beside the questionable manner in which the set-off was got up, is, that the party who proposes to set off, is the mere trustee; and Turner the cestui que trust of an equitable interest. Any judgment in favor of a stranger, might as well be set off, if against the Satterlees.

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Curia.

True, we look to the real interest of the parties; and protect the rights of assignees of choses in action, as far as this can be done consistently with the forms of law. The party who comes to set off a judgment need not show that it was obtained in his name. It is enough that he be the assignee. But he must be really so; and not the mere agent or trustee of another. He must be the absolute owner, holding the beneficial control, or he cannot set off. Here is no less a judgment against the sheriff, because Aikin has chosen to indemnify him. Even had the sheriff obtained a judgment in his own name against the Satterlees, he could not set it off after assigning it to Aikin: much less, where the judgment is neither nominally nor beneficially his own. In these cases, the inquiry must be, what is the interest of the party on record ? If it be nothing, there is nothing to set off If we allow bail, sureties and indemnitors to come in with their judgments, where are we to stop ? . They are not parties before us. That' it is not enough to show a mere formal assignment, we held in Gilman v. Van Slyck this very term. In that case, the [482]*482form, of the purchase was well enough; but it was not bona fide, and absolute. The bona fides with which a set-off is created, is always a legitimatesubject of inquiry. *Fair v. M'Iver, (16 East, 131,) is a strong case to show this. The set-off there was under the statute. The subject of it was "a debt which the bankrupt was bound to pay; but because it was created in fraud of a contract to pay in a bill, it was disallowed. The difficulty in the case before us, however, beside the questionable manner in which the set-off was got up, is, that the party who proposes to set off, is the mere trustee; and Turner the cestui que trust of an equitable interest. Any judgment in favor of a stranger, might as well be set off, if against the Satterlees.

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Bluebook (online)

7 Cow. 480, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/satterlee-satterlee-v-ten-eyck-nysupct-1827.

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