220 F. 193 | D. Mont. | 1915
A partnership and the two individuals composing it, joined in a single involuntary petition, were adjudged bankrupt. The appointed trustee petitioned for fees and commissions upon the partnership property or estate, and also upon the individual property or estate, separately computed. The referee allowed but one fee, but apparently granted the petition in respectóte commissions. The trustee seeks review.
“Trustees shall receive for their services * * * a fee of five dollars deposited with the clerk at the time the petition is filed in each case,” and “commissions on all moneys disbursed or turned over to any person,” computed at a prescribed and diminishing rate. Comp. St. 1913, § 9632.
Section 72 of said act, added in 1903, is that:
“Neither the referee, receiver, marshal, nor trustee shall in any form or guise receive, nor shall the court allow him, any other or further compensation for *his services than that expressly authorized and perscribed in this act.” Comp. St. 1913, § 9656.
Bankruptcy proceedings are in equity. When they involve a partnership, and throughout are based upon a single petition, as they should be, and as herein, however numerous the parties and controversies, and the necessity of conforming procedure and relief thereto,' they constitute, as in any like proceeding in equity, a single suit or case. It is the manner in which brought and prosecuted that determines whether proceedings are one case or more. A single case may be severed to form two or more, or two or more cases may be consolidated to form but one.
Although for procedural purposes in marshaling of assets the estates are separate, for the purpose of computing a trustee’s fee and commissions there is but one case. Commissions are to be computed on the moneys disbursed as a whole, and not as separate estates, and avoid the possibility of double commissions upon moneys twice disbursed by necessary transfer from or payment by estate to estate.
The referee’s allowances and order will be modified to conform hereto, and, as modified, are confirmed.