UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE

The practice of permitting judgment creditors to come in and make themselves parties to a creditor's bill, and so obtain the benefit, assuming at the same time their portion of the costs and expenses of the litigation,

is well settled. And a proceeding of this sort will not be reversed because the party so coming in has not obtained an order of court to come on; the want of such order not being objected to and the proceeding having gone on to its conclusion as if it had been obtained.

Semble that in Illinois, in the case of a perfectly fair assignment for the benefit of creditors, where the trust will give considerable trouble and property assigned is of a sort that little or no cash will pass into the hands of the assignee, a payment by the debtor previously to the assignment's being made, of a certain sum on account of commissions, need not of necessity vitiate the assignment.

Myers, Kinsly, and Stout, having obtained judgment against Fenn, filed a bill against him and three other persons named respectively, Thompson, Green, and Roberts -- which last-named person had been Fenn's general assignee, charging a fraudulent transfer of property by him to them. Before issue was had on this bill, one Bowen, having a judgment against Fenn for $3,260.96, and a certain Reed having one for $3,916.75, upon each of which execution had been returned unsatisfied, united by petition in the bill of Myers, Kinsly, and Stout. The petitions were filed without any order of court, but no objection was made, and the hearing went on as if an order had been granted. The bill set forth that Fenn, being hopelessly insolvent, had conveyed large clubjuris

Page 72 U. S. 206

quantities of property both to Thompson and to Green, receiving therefor payment in county bonds and other securities then so greatly depreciated as to make it plain that a fraud was intended. And as respected Robbins (the general assignee), that the assignment was not made in good faith, but in order to place the property beyond the reach of executions, and it prayed that it might be set aside.

After Bowen and Reed filed their petitions the proceeding as respected Thompson and Green was dismissed by consent of parties, the matter of the general assignment being thus the only matter remaining charged as fraudulent.

As respected this it appeared by the testimony of Robbins, the general assignee, called by the complainants, and the only witness examined, that Fenn was wholly insolvent and had transferred all his property of every sort to him, for the benefit of his creditors exclusively. It appeared also, however, on cross-examination, that before the assignment was resolved on, Fenn, by the advice of his friends, had come to Thompson, asking him to become the assignee; that Thompson had declined; that being still urged, Thompson had gone to counsel and ascertained that upon an estate such as Fenn's he would be entitled to six percent commission; that examining Fenn's affairs, he found that the amount of debt to be collected would be about $100,000, but that so very large an amount of it would be paid by counter demands on Fenn himself, that there would not be sufficient money to pay the commissions. Thompson therefore refused to accept the office of assignee unless Fenn paid him a "bonus," which Fenn paid him, accordingly, in the shape of three county bonds for $1,000 each, and worth actually about $2,300. This sum was apparently meant to be on account of commissions.

The Circuit Court for the Northern District of Illinois (in which the bill was filed) dismissed it. Appeal. clubjuris

Page 72 U. S. 207