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6 Johns. Ch. 437

Haggerty v. Palmer

New York Court of Chancery

Decided November 28, 1822

New York Court of Chancery · decided 1822-11-28

BILL for an injunction, filed June 13th, 1822, The material facts were admitted in the answer. The plaintiffs, on the 23d and 27th of May last, sold at auction, to the defendant, Palmer, a quantity of goods¿ to be paid in approved indorsed notes at four and six months. It is the usage in JVcro- Yorlc, where goods are sold afanetion for approved notes, to deliver the goods to the buyer when called for, and to send for the notes afterwards.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“if the goods had been fairly sold by P. (the conditional vendee), or if the proceeds had been actually appropriated by the assignees, before notice of this suit, and of the injunction, the remedy would have been gone.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Harkness v. Russell

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1822-11-28

How this case has been cited

Cited by 19 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 1916

14 state decisions

501822183018401850186018701880189019001910decided

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 →

The Chancellor.

¶1Upon this ease, I am of opinion, that the defendants must account for those proceeds to the plaintiffs. The delivery of the goods was conditional, and taken by the defendant, P., as a trustee for the plaintiffs, until the delivery of the notes. The voluntary assignment and delivery of these goods, in the character of an insolvent debtor, to J. 8f H, to pay other creditors, was an act of fraud, and ought not to deprive the plaintiffs of their equitable lien, in a case where there is no intervening claim of a purchaser for valuable consideration. If the goods had been fairly sold by P., or if the proceeds had been actually appropriated by the assignees, before notice of this suit, and of the injunction, the remedy would have been gone; But while the goods are in the possession, or *439under the control of P., or of bis voluntary assignee, the plaintiffs have the equitable lien and the better right. The eases under the English bankrupt acts do not strictly apply, for the statute of 11 and 12 Geo. III. ch. 8. declares, that goods placed under the order and disposition of the bankrupt, with the consent of the true owner, shall pass to the assignees. This is a proper rule, under the bankrupt system, to prevent fraud and collusion. But in a case like the present, when the purchaser knew of the usage, and that the delivery of the goods before the delivery of the notes was a deposit in trust, and well understood to be upon condition of a delivery of the notes, it would be very productive of fraud, to give the same force and effect to a voluntary assignment, made for partial purposes, and to the exclusion of the real owner. None of the authorities referred to appear to require us to go this length, and they are all distinguishable from the present case.

¶2I shall accordingly decree, that the assignees, J. &c Pf. account for the proceeds in their possession.

¶3Decree accordingly.

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