Where a creditor has a claim for a balance due against an
insolvent debtor afterwards adjudicated a bankrupt, upon an open
account for goods sold and delivered four months before the
adjudication in bankruptcy, and during said period makes a number
of sales of merchandise on credit to the insolvent debtor, which
becomes a part of the debtor's estate, and during the same period
receives payments of sums on account, from time to time, which
payments are received in good faith without knowledge of the
debtor's insolvency on the part of the creditor, the sales
exceeding in amount during said period the payments made during the
same time, he has not received a preference which he is obliged to
surrender before his claim shall be allowed.
Jaquith v.
Alden, 189 U. S. 78.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the Court.
Page 193 U. S. 527
THE CHIEF JUSTICE: Two questions are propounded by this
certificate, namely:
"1. Where a creditor has a claim for a balance due against an
insolvent debtor afterwards adjudicated a bankrupt, upon an open
account for goods sold and delivered four months before the
adjudication in bankruptcy, and during said period makes a number
of sales of merchandise on credit to the insolvent debtor, which
becomes a part of the debtor's estate, and during the same period
receives payments of sums on account, from time to time, which
payments are received in good faith, without knowledge of the
debtor's insolvency on the part of the creditor, the sales
exceeding in amount during said period the payments made during the
same time, has the creditor, under such circumstances, received a
preference which he is obliged to surrender before his claim shall
be allowed under the Bankrupt Act?"
"2. If each of such payments is a preference under the act, is
it to be set off under section 60
c of the act by deducting
subsequent sales therefrom, carrying forward to the next payment
any excess of preferences, but not of sales, treating any excess of
preferences as thus ascertained as a sum to be surrendered before
the allowance of the creditor's claim?"
The first question is answered in the negative on the authority
of
Jaquith v. Alden, 189 U. S. 78, and
the second need not be answered.
Certified accordingly.
