283 N.W. 535 | Minn. | 1939
1. Subsection 6 1/2 was adopted as an amendment of § 63a of the bankruptcy act during the pendency of this action on June 7, 1934. It provides that any damages "as evidenced by a judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction" in any action for negligence instituted prior to adjudication and pending at the time of filing the petition shall be provable as a debt. All the conditions of the statute existed with respect to the provability of plaintiff's claim except that it was not evidenced by a judgment. The condition that a claim shall be evidenced by a judgment requires a claim to *335
(D.C.)
The view that the claim must be evidenced by a judgment to be provable as a debt is confirmed by aids in construction. Prior to the enactment of subsection 6 1/2 the question was governed by § 63 of the original act of 1898, 30 St. 562, under which unliquidated claims in pure tort were not provable. Poznanovic v. Gilardine,
It is reasonable to infer that Congress used the expression "as evidenced by a judgment" in subsection 6 1/2 in the same sense in which it was used in the earlier statute, subsection 1, under the familiar rule that words and phrases which have acquired an established meaning by judicial construction are deemed to be used in the same sense in a subsequent statute relating to the same subject matter. After the courts have once said that the legislature meant *336
a certain thing by certain language, the legislature will be deemed to have intended the same meaning by again using the same language. Wenger v. Wenger,
Defendant urges that we should construe subsection 61/2 to conform to subsection 7 of § 63a, which became effective June 22, 1938 (52 St. 873, c. 575, § 1, the Chandler Act), and which provides: "(7) the right to recover damages in any action for negligence instituted prior to and pending at the time of the filing of the petition in bankruptcy." The argument invites us to dispense with the statutory requirement that the claim be evidenced by a judgment. This we cannot do. Subsection 7 supersedes subsection 6 1/2. *337 It was adopted in order to make a claim like the instant one provable as a debt without a judgment. Legislative action was necessary to accomplish that which defendant urges us to do by judicial construction.
2. Section 63b provides: "Unliquidated claims against the bankrupt may, pursuant to application to the court, be liquidated in such manner as it shall direct, and may thereafter be proved and allowed against his estate." This section simply provides a procedure for liquidating, under the direction of the bankruptcy court, unliquidated claims provable under § 63a, of which subsection 6 1/2 was a part. Claims not provable under § 63a may not be liquidated under § 63b and then allowed. In Schall v. Camors, supra, the rule was laid down that a claim in pure tort, not being provable as a debt under § 63a, cannot be liquidated and allowed under § 63b. See 6 Am.Jur., Bankruptcy, § 124; note, 106 A.L.R. 1121. Since plaintiff's claim was not a provable debt under § 63a(6 1/2), it could not be liquidated under § 63b.
Affirmed.