Assigned Estate of P. A. Ahl & Bros.
Assigned Estate of P. A. Ahl & Bros.
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
This proceeding was a petition for the removal of an assignee for the benefit of creditors. The original deed of assignment executed in 1885 was made by D. V. Ahl, P. A. Ahl and P. A. Ahl & Brother, and included the property of the partnership and the individual property of the members. Two assignees were appointed by the deed and they accepted and executed the trust until 1890, when they settled their accounts and were discharged on their own petition, and two other persons were appointed in their place. These persons continued in office until 1895, when W. A. Coffey was appointed in their place. The great bulk of the large and scattered assigned estates had been administered by the prior assignees when Coffey was appointed. There were still however a good many pieces of real estate and some personal property left to be administered by Coffey, and in 1897, he filed his first account. All the estates were managed together by each set of assignees and were so treated that it became impracticable to separate them. A large number of exceptions were presented to the account filed by Coffey as assignee in 1897, an auditor was appointed and, in July, 1898, while testimony was being taken before the auditor, a petition was presented to the court of common pleas by Q. P. Ahl, as administrator of John A. Ahl, deceased, who was a creditor to a large amount of D. Y. Ahl, one of the assignors, and a member of the firm of P. A. Ahl & Brother, praying for the removal of Coffey as assignee for causes mentioned in the petition. D. Y. Ahl had died in 1893, which was prior to Coffey’s appointment as assignee, but the settlement of the assigned
With regard to the causes of removal, they are fully expressed in the opinion of the court below, and we think they are amply justified by the testimony. They involve charges of waste and mismanagement, the payment of claims which were not legitimate, the incurring and paying of excessive charges for numerous services, the receipt and disbursement of large sums, without a single dollar remaining for creditors, the entirely unnecessary expenditure of a very considerable amount of money for the removal of a costly monument to another locality, the payment of debts which had been contracted by the assignors after the date of the assignment, the payment of very considerable sums for repairs to the real estate as to some of which it is alleged there were no actual repairs made, and as to others that the amounts paid were excessive and unreasonable. All these and other matters were found by the court as facts, and were quite sufficient to justify the decree of removal. The assignments of error are all dismissed.
Decree affirmed and appeal dismissed at the cost of the appellant.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Assigned Estate of P. A. Ahl & Brother. Appeal of W. A. Coffey
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- Assignment for creditors—Partnership—Removal of assignee. Where an assignment for creditors of the partnership and individual property has been made by a partnership and its members, and subsequently another person is substituted in the place of the original assignees, and the estates are so mingled and interwoven that it would be scarcely possible to treat them separately, such substituted assignee may be removed by the court from the administration of all of the estates upon the petition of an individual creditor of one of the partners praying for his removal as to such partner. As his appointment was a unit, his removal should be the same. Assignment for creditors—Misconduct of assignee—Removal. An assignee for creditors will be removed where it appears that he was guilty of waste and mismanagement; that he paid claims which were not legitimate; that he incurred the entirely unnecessary expenditure of a very considerable amount of money for the removal of a costly monument to another locality; that he paid debts which had been contracted by the assignors after the date of the assignment; that he paid very considerable-sums for repairs to the real estate as to some of which it was alleged there were no actual repairs made, and as to others that the amounts paid were excessive and unreasonable.