United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

De la Mettrie v. De Gasquet James, 272 U.S. 731 (1927)

De la Mettrie v. De Gasquet James

Nos. 54, 55

Argued December 6, 1926

Decided January 3, 1927

272 U.S. 731

Syllabus

1. Under § 9-e of the Trading with the Enemy Act, a debt to one who is not a citizen of the United States can not be allowed unless it "arose with reference to money or property" held by the Alien Property Custodian or the Treasurer of the United States. P. 272 U. S. 732.

2. The debts in this case, consisting of judgments against a person whose interest in a fund was seized by the Custodian, did not so arise. Id.

3. A receiver appointed by a New York court in proceedings supplementary to execution, to collect the judgments, was in no better position than the judgment creditors. Trading with the Enemy Act, § 9-f. P. 272 U. S. 733.

55 App.D.C. 354; 6 F.2d 479, affirmed.

Appeals from decrees of the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia which sustained the Supreme Court of the District in refusing to permit Keane, receiver, to intervene in a suit under the Trading with the Enemy Act, and in dismissing the suit after hearing. The plaintiffs, Pauline Andre de la Mettrie and George Pratt de Gasquet James, in 1915, had recovered judgments against the defendant Elizabeth Pratt de Gasquet James in the settlement of her accounts as executrix of her husband's

Page 272 U. S. 732

will, in a surrogate's court in New York, and sought by this suit to reach, and apply to the judgments, the interest of the defendant James in a voluntary trust created by herself in 1887, before her husband's death, and which had been taken over by the Alien Property Custodian. The other appellant, Keane, had been appointed receiver of the property of the defendant James in proceedings in New York supplementary to the judgment.