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54 Mo. 137

McGready v. Harris

Supreme Court of Missouri

Decided October 15, 1873

Supreme Court of Missouri · decided 1873-10-15

I. Even if the sale under the deed of trust after the filing of the petition in bankruptcy against the grantor, would not prevent the assignee subsequently appointed from redeeming the premises, the purchaser at such sale acquired the legal title, and is, therefore, entitled to the possession, till the sale be set aside, and the proper party has been permitted to redeem.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1873-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently December 1924

1 district · 3 state decisions

30187318801890190019101920decided

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.

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Napton, Judge,

¶1delivered the opinion of the court.

¶2This was an action of ejectment. The plaintiff was the purchaser of the lands sued for, at a sale made in August, 1872, by the trustee under a deed of trust made in 1868. In April 1872 (Apr. 8th) proceedings in bankruptcy had been instituted in the District Court of the United States against the debtor and grantor in the deed of trust, but the trustee, although apprised of such proceedings by the grantor on the day of the sale, proceeded with the sale, and the plaintiff became the purchaser, and the only question is, whether the institution of the proceedings in the U. S. District Court rendered the sale void.

¶3There, was no order from the District Court restraining, or otherwise interfering with, the sale, nor'had the proceedings therein terminated in any adjudication whatever. It was an *140attempt on tire part of defendant’s creditors to have him de dared a bankrupt.

¶4The Circuit Court, before which this case was tried, declared the sale null, and that the plaintiff had no title.

¶5We do not so understand the decisions of the Federal Courts interpreting the Bankrupt Act. That law was not designed to invalidate or destroy bona fide liens on the estate of the bankrupt, nor does it reserve exclusively to the District Court the power to have them enforced in all cases, and under all circumstances.

¶6They may be enforced in [the] mode provided for by the contract of the parties, or by the action of State courts or State officers.

¶7Doubtless the District Court might have intervened in this case, but it did not, and therefore we cannot see that the mere fact of a proceeding being instituted would destroy the legal title of plaintiff as he received it from the trustee.

¶8So far as the rights of an assignee in bankruptcy are coñ cerned, it may well be that the whole transaction could be, bn. presentation to the court, examined and declared fraudulent or void, if the facts warranted.

¶9But no assignee has been appointed in this case, nor so far as the record shows has there been any adjudication whatever in the proceedings in the District Court.

¶10Should such adjudication occur, and an assignee be appointed, we are unable to perceive why the assignee cannot deal with the purchaser as well as the mortgagor, if he seeks to question the validity of the deed or of the sale thereunder.

¶11With these questions however we have no concern. In this action of ejectment the simple question is, who has the legal title, the purchaser at the sale or the defendant ? The deed gave the trustee a power to sell and convey the legal title.

¶12Whether this sale was made under such circumstances as to authorize a Court of Equity to set it aside in a direct proceeding for that purpose, is another question, which is not presented by this case. The court below simply declared the sale a nullity. It may be, that the land was sacrificed, and *141that the trustee should have deferred the sale under the circumstances, but the court below did not pass on that point and it is not therefore before this court.

¶13The j udgment is reversed and the cause remanded.

The other judges concur.
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