100 F. 430 | N.D. Cal. | 1900
The bankrupt has the absolute right to apply for his discharge at any time after the éxpiration of 1 month and within 12 months subsequent to being adjudged bankrupt. If the application is not filed within that period, and “it shall be made to appear to the judge that the bankrupt was unavoidably prevented from
“Where the delay in rendering a judgment or a decree arises l'vom the act of the court,---that is. where, the delay 1ms been caused either for its convenience, or by the multiplicity or press of business, either the intricacy of the questions involved, or of any other cause not attributable to the laches of the parties, — the judgment or llie decree may he entered, retrospectively as of a, time, when it should or might have been entered up.” Mitchell v. Overman, 103 U. S. 61, 46 L. Ed. 370; Gray v. Brignardello, 1 Wall. 627, 37 L. Ed. 003.
It is clear that the present case does not fall within tisis rule. It may be. however, that the prayer of the present petition can be construed. as, in effect, asking that tin; court shall, by its order, now (ton-sent. ro the previous filing of the application for discharge, and per mil the same to stand with the same legal effect as if it had been regularly filed. Without passing upon the question of the power of the court to make such an order as that, and more particularly upon an application made, as iu this case, more than 18 months after the adjudication, it will he sufficient to say that the facts stated in the petition do not show that the bankrupt was unavoidably prevented from tiling his application for discharge within 12 months after the adjudication. The application for leave to file is denied, and the petition for discharge, filed herein on December 6, 1899, will be dismissed. without prejudice to the right of the bankrupt to commence a new proceeding in bankruptcy.