McCruden v. Jonas
McCruden v. Jonas
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
The fund for distribution was created by a receiver’s sale of the property of the Parisian Cloak and Suit Company. It is not sufficient to pay the debts of the company in full, and we are therefore required to consider and determine on this appeal whether Yetta Greenboum is entitled to participate in it on the footing of the other creditors. To substantiate her claim that she is, she presents three notes, made by the Parisian Cloak and Suit Company on the 15th of April, 1893, to the order of I. Jonas and Company from whom she received them, duly indorsed as collateral security for their pre-existing indebtedness to her. It is conceded that the notes represent a bona fide indebtedness of the makers to the payees and that she has by virtue of them the same rights in the distribution of the fund in question that they gave to the parties to whose order they were drawn. In order to make her position in the distribution clear it is necessary to state the material facts affecting it and these are as fol
The learned court below in awarding to Mrs. Greenboum the balance of the fund remaining after paying thereout the claims of the other creditors in full gave her all that she was entitled to, and all that the parties to whose rights she succeeded could possibly have received from it. As they were liable for all the claims of the other creditors they could not have participated in the distribution until those claims were satisfied. This is a proposition in accordance with equity and well sustained by the decisions of this court: Erb’s Appeal, 2 P. & W. 296; Himes v. Barnitz, 8 Watts. 39; Worral’s Appeal, 41 Pa. 524, and Datesman’s Appeal, 77 Pa. 243. There is nothing in the act of April 14, 1838, which sustains the contention that an insolvent partnership composed of three of the four members of another insolvent partnership can as a creditor of the latter share equally with its other creditors in the distribution of its assets. This act has been severely and justly criticised in most if not all of the cases in which it has been considered but it has never yet produced such results as are contended for in this case: Tassey v. Church, 6 W. & S. 465; Pennock v. Shayne, 6 W. & S. 239, and Allen v. Erie City Bank, 57 Pa. 129.
Decree affirmed and appeal dismissed at the costs of the appellant.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Thomas H. McCruden v. Isador Jonas, Newman Kujavski and Estelle G. Sommers. Yetta Greenboum's Appeal
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- 1 case
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- Syllabus
- Partnership — Insolvency—Priority of creditors — Act of April 14, 1838. An insolvent partnership composed of three of the four members of a second insolvent partnership cannot, as a creditor of the latter, share equally with the latter’s other creditors in the distribution of its assets. There is nothing in the act of April 14, 1838, P. L. 457, which will sustain such a claim. Partnership — Insolvency—Promissory notes. Where an insolvent partnership composed of four persons gives a promissory note to another insolvent partnership composed of three persons, all of whom are members of the drawer partnership, and the note is transferred by the payees as collateral security for a pre-existing debt to a third person who has full knowledge of the affairs of both partnerships, such holder of the note will be postponed to the other creditors of the firm which made the note. Promissory notes — Place of payment — Presumption. Where three promissory notes are given in another state by the same maker, at the same time, bearing the same date, payable within the same time to the same person, to apply on the same debt, and two of the notes are made payable at the maker’s store, and the third note is not made payable at any designated place, the presumption is that the place of payment of the third note was inadvertently omitted, and that the place of payment of the third note was also at the maker’s store in Pittsburg.