165 F. 434 | 2d Cir. | 1908
December 33, 1906, at about noon, the firm of R. S. Bevins & Co., of Niagara Falls, delivered an assignment for the benefit of creditors to one Chamberlain, at Buffalo. The assignee told R. S. Bevins to go back to Niagara Falls and take possession of the business until he could get down and close it up. On the same
We follow the finding of the master and of the district judge that Fisher and Goetz were the real owners of the claims purchased by ¡hem against the alleged bankrupts, and that therefore Hie requirement of section 59b of the bankrupt act of July 1, 1898, c. 541, 80 Stat. 561 (U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3445), that there should be three petitioning creditors is satisfied. The right to purchase claims in order to make up the necessary number of petitioning creditors was upheld under the act of 1867 in Re Woodford, Fed. Cas. No. 17,972, 13 N. B. R. 575. The claim of Becker & Co. was provable when the petition was filed, and, as the petitioning creditors then represented an indebtedness over $500, the requirements of section 59b were satisfied in this respect also. In re Hornstein (D. C.) 122 Fed. 266; In re Mertens, 147 Fed. 177, 77 C. C. A. 473.
The damages caused by the attachment belong to the assignee, Chamberlain, as owner of the goods attached, and, being in another’s right, could not he set off b}r the respondents against Becker & Co.’s claim, and the respondents have not tried to do so in their answer. In respect to the costs, only $10 have been awarded to the respondents, which is not sufficient to reduce the indebtedness represented by the petitioning creditors below $500, even if a claim accruing to the respondents after the filing of the petition could be set off.
The order adjudicating the respondents bankrupts is affirmed. Submitted without argument.