Summary
In J.B. Orcutt Company v. Green, 1907, 204 U.S. 96, 27 S.Ct. 195, 51 L.Ed. 390, the Supreme Court construed the last sentence of the first paragraph of General Order XXI to mean that a proof of debt (except that of the trustee himself) could be validly filed with the trustee and that the creditor thus filing it could not be prejudiced by the trustee's failure to comply with the requirement of General Order XXI that he, having received it, deliver it to the referee.
Summary of this case from In re Oscillation Therapy ProductsOpinion
No. 116.
Argued December 6, 1906. Decided January 7, 1907.
Presentation and delivery to the trustee, within a year after the adjudication, for filing with the referee, of proof of claim is a filing within § 57 of the Bankruptcy Act as construed in connection with General Order in Bankruptcy, No. 21. The neglect of a trustee in bankruptcy to deliver to the referee claims left with him for filing is the neglect of an officer of the court and not the failure of the creditor to file his claim. A trustee in bankruptcy cannot file with himself proof of his own claim against the bankrupt, nor can the delivery of such proof to his own attorney for filing with the referee stand, in case of failure of his attorney so to do, in place of delivery to the referee.
Mr. Charles Cowles Tucker and Mr. Reginald S. Huidekoper, with whom Mr. J. Miller Kenyon was on the brief, for petitioners:
There is no provision in the Bankruptcy Act which fixes the time within which proofs of claim must be filed. In re Hernstein, 10 Am. B.R. 308-320; Hutchinson v. Otis, 190 U.S. 552. The language of the Bankruptcy Act should not be altered by construction so as to work a forfeiture of the rights of these creditors. Forfeitures are not favored in law. Marshall v. Vicksburg, 15 Wall. 146; Vattel, 29th Rule of Construction; Farmers' Mechanics' Bank v. Dearing, 91 U.S. 29.
The purpose of the Bankruptcy Act is to provide for equality in distribution among creditors and not to enforce forfeitures as against particular creditors. By placing the narrow construction upon § 57 n contended for by the respondents, a forfeiture of the rights of certain creditors will be enforced. 26 Am. Eng. Ency. of Law, 661.
Granted that the act limits the time within which proofs must be presented to one year after adjudication, it is sufficient if they be presented within that time to the trustee.
The trustee, being an officer of the court, his acts may well be said to be the acts of the court itself, and by filing a claim with him, it can very properly be said that the claim is filed in the court where the proceedings are pending as required by § 57 c of the act.
Even assuming that the Supreme Court has mistaken the limitation of its power, and that the last sentence of General Order XXI (1) is invalid, upon general principles of equity the order of the District Judge should be sustained.
Mr. Herbert D. Bailey, with whom Mr. Frank H. Deal was on the brief, for respondents:
The word "Proved," as used in 57 n, contemplates and includes filing. General Order XXI (1) speaks of a deposition to prove claims, etc. This deposition is used as synonymous with proof of debt. That deposition becomes proof when it comes regularly before the proper tribunal. Before a claim is proved, it must have come before the referee.
The trustee has no duty to perform in respect to the filing of claims. There is no provision anywhere in the act for filing claim with anyone save the referee, in referred cases. In so far as General Order XXI (1) seems to contemplate a "filing" with the trustee, it is confessedly at variance with the act. The act must prevail and where at variance therewith the General Orders are not to be considered. Collier, 4th ed. 286; West v. Lea, 2 Am. B.R. 463.
The question in this case resolves itself into one of the sufficiency of the presentation of proofs of claims of the creditors named in the foregoing statement. They were, in reality, presented and delivered to the trustee in bankruptcy before the expiration of one year after adjudication, but there was no actual filing of the claims with the referee until after the expiration of that time, when the attempt to file them with the petition was made as above stated.
The question turns upon the construction of some of the subdivisions of the fifty-seventh section of the Bankruptcy Act, together with the twenty-first General Order in Bankruptcy, the last part of which reads: "Proofs of debt received by any trustee shall be delivered to the referee to whom the case is referred."
Sub-section a of section 57 provides that "Proofs of claims shall consist of a statement under oath, in writing, signed by a creditor setting forth the claim, the consideration therefor, and whether any, and, if so what, securities are held therefor; and whether any, and, if so what, payments have been made thereon, and that the sum claimed is justly owing from the bankrupt to the creditor."
Sub-section c provides that "Claims after being proved may, for the purpose of allowance, be filed by the claimants in the court where the proceedings are pending or before the referee if the case has been referred."
Sub-section d provides that "Claims which have been duly proved shall be allowed, upon receipt by or presentation to the court, unless objection to their allowance shall be made by parties in interest, or their consideration be continued for cause by the court upon its own motion."
Sub-section n provides that "Claims shall not be proved against a bankrupt estate subsequent to one year after the adjudication."
If the presentation and delivery of these proofs of claim in the case before us with the trustee was sufficient within the meaning of the Bankruptcy Act, then the referee should have proceeded to determine the question of their allowance, when presented to him, the same as if they had been filed with him personally within the year subsequent to adjudication.
We have been referred to no case in this court deciding the exact question, nor is there cited any case in the lower courts wherein it has been decided, with the exception of that of In re Seff, District Court of United States, Southern District of New York (not reported), where the question before us seems to have been directly before that court, and the decision was in favor of the sufficiency of the filing with the trustee. The parties hereto have cited a great many cases in the lower courts deciding questions somewhat analogous to the one now before us, but none in which this question has been decided. We, therefore, think it unnecessary to refer to them.
We are of opinion, taking into consideration the various provisions of the fifty-seventh section of the Bankruptcy Act, in connection with No. 21 of the General Orders in Bankruptcy, adopted by this court, that the presentation and delivery of proofs of claim to the trustee in bankruptcy within the year after the adjudication is a filing within the statute and the general order above mentioned.
The General Orders of this court are provided for by section 30 of the Bankruptcy Act, which enacts that, "All necessary rules, forms, and orders as to procedure and for carrying this act into force and effect shall be prescribed, and may be amended from time to time, by the Supreme Court of the United States." Under that section this court had the power to provide, as it has done in Order 21, that "Proofs of debt received by any trustee shall be delivered to the referee to whom the cause is referred." There is nothing in that provision inconsistent with, or opposed to, anything stated in the bankruptcy law upon the subject, and we must, therefore, take the statute and the order and read them together, the order being simply somewhat of an amplification of the law with respect to procedure, but nothing which can be construed as beyond the powers granted to the court by virtue of the law itself. The question is not whether anyone but the court or referee can pass upon a claim and allow it or disallow it. That must be done by the court or referee, but it is simply whether a delivery of a claim, properly proved, to the trustee is a sufficient filing. The law provides, sub-section c of section 57, that the claims, after being proved, may, for the purpose of allowance, be filed by the claimants in the court where the proceedings are pending, or before the referee, if the case has been referred; but that does not prohibit their being filed somewhere else prior to their allowance, and the Order in Bankruptcy in substance provides that they may be filed after being proved, with the trustee. Such order is equivalent to saying that proofs of debt (or claim) may be received by the trustee. When they are so received by him they are in legal effect received by the court, whose officer the trustee is. Having been received by the trustee, under authority of law, the proofs of debt are thereby sufficiently filed so far as the creditors are concerned, and it is the duty of the trustee to deliver them to the referee. If the trustee inadvertently neglects to perform that duty it is the neglect of an officer of the court, and the creditors are in no way responsible therefor. The presentation and filing have been made within the time provided for and with one of the proper officers, and his failure to deliver to the referee cannot be held to be a failure on the part of the creditor to properly file his proofs.
Not much benefit can be derived from an examination of the Bankruptcy Act of 1867, in reference to the provisions therein contained, granting power to the Justices of the Supreme Court to frame general orders for the purpose named. See section 10, Bankruptcy Act of 1867. We think it plain that so far as this matter is concerned the Supreme Court had full power to make the General Order it did.
Different considerations, however, apply to the one claim made by the trustee himself. We do not think that in any event a trustee could file with himself his proof of his own claim against the estate of the bankrupt. General principles of law forbid that he should so act in his own case. And his delivery of his own claim to his attorney could not make such delivery stand in the place of a delivery to the referee.
These views lead to a reversal of the order of the Circuit Court of Appeals, and the affirmance of the order made by the District Court, with the modification, refusing the filing of the proof of claim of the trustee himself.
And it is so ordered.