113 F. 304 | 7th Cir. | 1902
This cause was heard in this court at the June term for igoo, before Mr. Justice BROWN, one of the Justices of the Supreme Court, WOODS, Circuit Judge, and BUNN, District Judge. The case is an elaborate one, the testimony being very voluminous and filling many volumes. This, and the circumstance that Mr. Justice BROWN, since the hearing of the case, has been very steadily and laboriously occupied with work in the supreme court, has caused some delay in the decision of the case. The cause was begun in the United States circuit court for the Northern district of Illinois by a bill in equity filed on May 5, 1876, and has been pending in that court and in this for over a quarter of a century; thus rivaling in point of duration some of the most celebrated chancery cases existing either in fact or in fiction. The bill was a creditors’ bill charging that the defendant Harding, who had been intimately connected with the Globe Insurance Company as director, stockholder, and president, had in his hands a large amount of assets and securities, aggregating over $100,000, belonging to the insurance company, which, ought in equity to be applied in satisfaction of the company’s debts. The bill sought a discovery, and the defendants were required to- disclose what assets they had, if any, and the circumstances under which they received the same, with a view to the application of such assets to the payment of the general creditors of the company. The defendant Harding answered, setting forth the securities that he had taken from the company, and the circumstances under which he received them; and the principal contention in the case has been whether he could rightfully hold these securities as against the rights of the
“Since the rehearing has been urged in behalf of defendant Ilarding with great earnestness, and in view of the importance of the questions involved, the court has taken occasion, not only to consider the particular question argued upon the rehearing (which related to the time the company became insolvent), but to go anew over tlie case, and is unable to take any other view than that which was announced in its former opinion, and its judgment is that the cause should proceed upon the basis of that opinion.”
After a careful examination of the case and of the many assignments of error, this court concurs with this view. The cause was
“Much of the argument of defendant and his counsel has been devoted to the proposition that the interlocutory decree heretofore entered by Judge Dyer was mistaken in fact in this: .that the insurance company was not at the time then found in reality insolvent. It is claimed that events coming to consummation since the entry of that order disprove this, finding. I do not feel at liberty to disregard that order, or to take up the question again as to whether the company was at the time insolvent, and have not pursued as carefully as if the question were before me de novo this specific inquiry.”
It is proper .to say that this court has considered that question, and finds no reason to disturb or question the correctness of the finding and conclusion of the court below upon that question. A1-. though the assignments of error are numerous, being 121 in number, we have been: unable to find any substantial error in the record which should suffice to affect the decree of the court. The cause was kept in the circuit court upon various motions and references until the final order was made by Judge Grosscup on February 28, 1899, upon the filing of which an appeal was taken by the defendant Harding, but the case was not heard in this court until the June session of 1900.
It may be proper to say that though WOODS, Circuit Judge, who participated in the hearing of the case, died in July, 1901, before this memorandum of opinion was prepared, he concurred in the decision.
The decree of the circuit court is affirmed.
Since published in 113 Fed. 307.