59 Miss. 80 | Miss. | 1881
delivered the opinion of the court.
On the 8th of March, 1881, T. E. Richardson, an insolvent merchant in the city of Jackson, made an assignment of all his property of every character and description, except so much of it as was by law exempt from execution, for the benefit of his creditors ; dividing the creditors into four classes, and directing that these classes should be paid in the order of their numerical priority; thus giving preferences among them, the effect of which might be, and probably was, that those belonging to the fourth and most numerous class would receive nothing. The
As before remarked, there are three principal objections urged against the assignment in this case, as showing upon its face that it is fraudulent in law : first, because the grantor excepts out of his property so much as is by law exempt from execution, and reserves the same to himself; second, because by the terms of the instrument the assignee is authorized to sell the property conveyed either for cash or on credit, as he may deem most beneficial for the creditors ; third, because, as is alleged, the assignee is authorized to carry on the mercantile business in which the grantor was engaged, for the benefit of the creditors, in the same way as the grantor was himself carrying it on before the execution of the deed of assignment.
First, as to the reservation of the exempt property. In this conveyance, after a specific and full enumeration of all the grantor’s property, consisting of all the goods, wares, and merchandise contained in two storehouses in the city of Jackson, together with all the notes, accounts, and assets belonging thereto, some real estate particularly described, and ten head of mules, there is a general grant of all property belonging to the grantor in these words: “ Every and all right, title, claim, and interest in any and all property and valuables of every sort, kind, or description, save and except such as I have a legal right to retain and hold under the exemption laws of this State.” It is insisted that this reservation or exception of the exempt property out of the property assigned renders the deed void on its face. If this position had not received the sanction of a court of high character, and was not sustained by the opinion of a judge of excellent repute, it would be difficult for us to imagine how a debtor could be supposed to perpetrate a fraud on creditors by reserving to himself that which the law under all circumstances reserves to him, and which it prohibits its officers or his creditors from interfering with or molesting in any way, except where he has voluntarily incumbered or
This strikes us as a remarkable decision. It is true that a man cannot by one and the same instrument convey an estate and at the same time reserve the same property or any part of it; and, if he attempts to do so, the reservation is void; but it is quite manifest that nothing of that sort was here attempted. It was simply a conveyance of all the debtor’s property, except a certain portion, to wit, that which was by law exempt from execution. As to that portion, there was no conveyance and consequently no conflict. So much of this decision as declared that the reservation of the exempt property rendered the deed void because it was an attempt to reserve that which was by the deed conveyed, was by the same court overruled in the later case of Farquharson v. McDonald, 2 Heisk. 404. The court, however, in the later case seem still to be of the opinion that there must be some definite ascertainment and description of the property claimed as exempt, in order to render the reservation good, at least where the property is of that character that the debtor is entitled to select a certain amount out of a larger mass. Whether it was meant that a failure to make this selection in advance of an attack upon the conveyance by some dissatisfied creditor would avoid the whole deed, or would only have the effect of causing a loss of the exemption, does not in this case clearly appear; but in the still later one of Overton v. Holinshade, 5 Heisk. 683, it is
Was the assignment fraudulent on its face because it gave the assignee power in his discretion to sell the property for cash or “on such advantageous credit terms as said trustee shall deem for the best advantage for all the creditors”? It is quite universally admitted that an assignment which requires .the property to be sold on a credit is fraudulent and void, because it is an attempt, upon the part of him who professes to be transferring his property to others, to impress upon it a condition inconsistent with -their right to realize their debts out of it. If the property is to be theirs, they and not he should say whether it shall be sold on a credit. Whether the same result will follow where there is a discretion confided to the trustee to sell for cash or credit, as shall in his opinion best promote the interests of the cestuis que trust, is a question upon which the authorities are in hopeless conflict. Bump, in his work on Fraudulent Conveyances, broadly lays down the doctrine that it will not, and seems to think that this is clear on the authorities. Bump Fraud. Con. 410. Our own investigations have led us to the conclusion that there is perhaps no question on which the authorities are more evenly divided, and that it is, therefore, one upon which each court may feel entirety at liberty to adopt whichever view seems to it best. It would be useless to repeat the various arguments on
The other principal objection urged against the deed of assignment is, that it permits the assignee to carry on and Continue the mercantile business, buying and selling in the ordinary course of trade, and replenishing the stock on hand at pleasure for an indefinite period. If such is its character, it is of course fraudulent under the principles announced in Harman
Our conclusion is, that there was nothing on the face of the deed which made it fraudulent in law. On the hearing of the motion to remove the assignee and appoint a receiver, testimony was adduced showing the mode and manner in which the assignee was administering the trust, and this testimony demonstrated that he was doing the very things which, if he had been by the deed authorized to do, it would have made the conveyance void, that is to say he was carrying on the business very much as if no assignment had been made. The assignee was but little in Jackson, and the business, though transacted in his name and doubtless under his orders, was in fact conducted by the grantor and his former clerks. The deed gave the assignee power to employ assistants, as was entirely proper, nor was it necessarily wrong in him to employ the grantor and his former clerks, provided matters were in fact conducted under his direction, and the assistants employed were the mere instruments of his will; but neither in person nor by others could he administer the trust as it was in fact administered. The business in hand was to sell out the property as speedily and as advantageously as possible, to collect the choses in action and with the proceeds pay off the debts in the order of priority named. Instead of doing this, the stock
In the future development of the case, if the facts shall demonstrate that the course of conduct pursued was in the contemplation of the grantor in executing the deed, and that it was executed for the purpose of being replaced in possession of property which he pretended to assign, or for the purpose of having the business carried on by another in such manner that there might be opportunity afforded of retrieving his losses by more fortunate ventures in the future, it will become the duty of the Chancellor to annul it as fraudulent in fact.
Decree affirmed, and cause remanded for further proceedings.