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226 Mass. 187

Smith v. Miller

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1917-03-01

Contract against three defendants upon a judgment obtained against them in a previous action. Writ dated June 10, 1916. In the Superior Court the case was tried before Hamilton, J., without a jury. The material facts and the course of proceedings in regard to the defendant Fishbein, who gave a bond with sureties to dissolve an attachment and afterwards was adjudicated a bankrupt, are stated in the opinion.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“A suit which is founded upon a claim from which a discharge would be a release, and which is pending against a person at the time of the filing of a petition against him, shall be stayed until after an adjudication or the dismissal of the petition; if such person is adjudged a bankrupt, such action may be further stayed until twelve months after the date of such adjudication, or, if within that time such person applies for a discharge, then until the xjuestion of such discharge is determined. . . .”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Connell v. Walker

““The discretion vested in the trial court by section 11 of the Bankruptcy Act does not depend upon the question whether an attachment was made in the pending action within, or more than four months before, the fifing of the petition in bankruptcy, or whether any attachment has been made. It follows that the defendant was not entitled as of right to a continuance of the action after he was adjudicated a bankrupt.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including de Jesús v. District Court of San Juan

Relies on Rosenthal v. Nove · Parker v. Murphy · Rogers v. Abbot

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1917-03-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 14 later decisions (3 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 1984

2 federal appellate · 2 district · 5 state decisions

11019171920193019401950196019701980decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Crosby, J.

¶1This is an action upon a judgment; the writ is dated June 10, 1916. The defendant Fishbein gave a bond with sureties to dissolve an attachment made upon the writ and after-wards, on August 24, 1916, was adjudicated bankrupt.

¶2The case was heard upon the merits by a judge of the Superior Court, sitting without a jury. At that hearing Fishbein filed a suggestion of bankruptcy, together with a duly certified copy of the adjudication, and also.presented a motion for a continuance of the action, so far as it related to him, to await further proceedings in the bankruptcy court. After a hearing, this motion was denied; a finding was made in .favor of the plaintiff against all the defendants, and a stay of execution was ordered as against the defendant Fishbein. To the ruling denying the motion for a continuance, Fishbein excepted, and this exception raises the only question presented.

¶3The bankruptcy act (U. S. St. 1898, c. 541, § 11) requires a stay of an action pending upon a claim to which a discharge would be a bar, until after an adjudication or the dismissal of the petition; but whether such an action is to be further stayed after an adjudication of bankruptcy, is to be determined by the trial judge in the exercise of his discretion.

¶4In construing § 11 of the bankruptcy act, which deals with this question, this court said in the case of Rosenthal v. Nove, 175 Mass. 559, at page 563, “we hold that the court in which a suit against a bankrupt is pending is not, after the adjudication of bankruptcy, bound to stay proceedings further therein, while it may do so if, and to such an extent as, justice may require. The action is not absolutely barred, and the court has power to proceed to *189judgment.” Feigenspan v. McDonnell, 201 Mass. 341. Rogers v. Abbot, 206 Mass. 270. Parker v. Murphy, 215 Mass. 72. In re Maaget, 173 Fed. Rep. 232.

¶5The discretion vested in the trial court by § 11 of the bankruptcy act does not depend upon the question whether an attachment was made in the pending action within, or more than four months before the filing of the petition in bankruptcy, or whether any attachment has been made. It follows that the defendant was not entitled as of right to a continuance of the action after he was adjudicated a bankrupt.

¶6The plaintiff asks that judgment be entered in his favor as of November 6,1916, the date when such judgment would have been entered if exceptions had not been filed. This request cannot be granted. It should be made by motion in the Superior Court where the case is pending.

¶7Exceptions overruled.

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