Presentation and delivery to the trustee, within a year after
the adjudication, for filing with the referee, of proof of claim is
a filing within § 57 of the Bankruptcy Act as construed in
connection with General Order in Bankruptcy, No. 21.
The neglect of a trustee in bankruptcy to deliver to the referee
claims left with him for filing is the neglect of an officer of the
court, and not the failure of the creditor to file his claim.
A trustee in bankruptcy cannot file with himself proof of his
own claim against the bankrupt, nor can the delivery of such proof
to his own attorney for filing with the referee stand, in case of
failure of his attorney so to do, in place of delivery to the
referee.
This case comes here upon return to a writ of certiorari, issued
by this Court to the circuit court of appeals of the Second
Circuit. It is a proceeding in bankruptcy, and the question
involved is one in regard to the sufficiency of the filing of
certain proofs of claims against the bankrupts' estate.
The facts are these: Messrs. Ingalls Brothers were adjudicated
bankrupts in proceedings in the District Court of the United States
for the Northern District of New York on the third day of December,
1902. Soon thereafter, one Charles Duncan was appointed trustee,
and on the nineteenth day of December, 1902, he duly verified a
proof of claim in his own behalf for $4,171, admitting an offset of
$327. On the first of April, 1903, the J. B. Orcutt Company duly
verified a proof of claim against the bankrupts' estate for
$893.68, and in a short time delivered it to the trustee. At the
first meeting of creditors, Charles H. Dauchy Company presented to
the referee a defective proof of claim against said bankrupts for
$3,335.67, which was returned by the referee to said company
Page 204 U. S. 97
for correction. Prior to January 23, 1903, the Dauchy Company
duly verified another proof of claim in the same amount, prepared
by Henry W. Smith, the attorney for the trustee, who had
volunteered to prepare the same so as to comply with the rules, and
on or about March 15, 1903, the Dauchy Company delivered this proof
of claim to the trustee. Prior to June 1, 1903, the trustee
delivered all three claims to said Henry W. Smith, with directions
to file the same with the referee, which the attorney promised to
do. In this he failed. When the attorney Smith received these
claims from the trustee, he handed them to a clerk in his office,
directing him to put them with the papers in this proceeding, and
shortly after told the clerk to file the proofs of the claim with
the referee. The clerk neglected to do so, and some time
afterwards, upon being asked in regard to it, said that he would do
so immediately. This was before the expiration of the year after
the adjudication. But he again failed to make the filing. The
Dauchy proof, which had been left with the attorney, is lost, and
cannot be found after diligent search made by the attorney for it
in his office. The other two claims, the Orcutt Company and
Duncan's own claim, were found in a package of papers relating to
another bankruptcy proceeding. Another proof of claim, for the same
amount, was made by the Dauchy Company April 2, 1904, and, with the
Duncan and Orcutt proofs, was presented to the referee for filing,
each proof being accompanied by a petition, dated April 2, 1904,
for leave to file each of said claims
nunc pro tunc as of
a date prior to December 3, 1903, or for such other or further
relief as might be just and proper. Smith was not the attorney for
any of the claimants, and his failure to file with the referee was
not by virtue of any instructions to withhold such claims from
filing, nor was it known on the part of any of the claimants that
he had failed to file them until more than a year after the
adjudication.
Upon the presentation of these claims with the petition, other
creditors of the bankrupts objected to the granting of the relief
asked in the petition upon the ground that the claims
Page 204 U. S. 98
had not been seasonably presented to the court, and were barred
under the provisions of § 5
n of the Bankruptcy Act.
Upon the hearing of the petition for leave to file these proofs
of claim, the referee to whom the case had been referred denied the
petition, under the objection of other creditors, on the ground
that, one year having expired subsequent to the adjudication of
bankruptcy and prior to the filing of the several petitions and the
presentation therewith to the referee, the referee had no power to
permit the filing of said proofs of claims, and that neither the
referee nor the court had any discretionary power to permit either
of said proofs of claims to be filed, either
nunc pro tunc
or otherwise. An order denying the relief asked was duly
entered.
The referee then certified for review by the district court the
question whether his decision was correct in refusing the relief
stated by the claimants.
The district court directed that the claims of the petitioning
creditors should be filed as of the date when delivered to the
trustee.
Charles H. Green, one of the creditors of the bankrupts,
thereupon appealed from the order of the district court reversing
the determination made by the referee to the United States Circuit
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and in his appeal, in view
of the position of the trustee and his refusal himself to act in
the matter, Green asked that he might be permitted to prosecute the
appeal for himself and the other creditors. The district court
thereupon allowed the appeal and cited the respondents to appear in
the circuit court of appeals. That court, having heard the case
argued, reversed the decision of the district court, and affirmed
that of the referee. A brief memorandum was filed by the court in
which it was stated that the referee had given a very full
examination of the question of law involved, and that the court
concurred in his interpretation of the statute, and that his
opinion might be printed as a supplement to the memorandum of the
court.
Page 204 U. S. 100
MR. JUSTICE PECKHAM, after making the foregoing statement,
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question in this case resolves itself into one of the
sufficiency of the presentation of proofs of claims of the
creditors named in the foregoing statement. They were, in reality,
presented and delivered to the trustee in bankruptcy before the
expiration of one year after adjudication, but there was no actual
filing of the claims with the referee until after the expiration of
that time, when the attempt to file them with the petition was made
as above stated.
The question turns upon the construction of some of the
subdivisions of the fifty-seventh section of the Bankruptcy Act,
together with the twenty-first General Order in Bankruptcy, the
last part of which reads: "Proofs of debt received by any trustee
shall be delivered to the referee to whom the cause is
referred."
Subsection
a of § 57 provides that
"proof of claims shall consist of a statement under oath, in
writing, signed by a creditor, setting forth the claim, the
consideration therefor, and whether any, and, if so, what,
securities are held therefor, and whether any, and, if so, what,
payments have been made thereon, and that the sum claimed is justly
owing from the bankrupt to the creditor."
Subsection
c provides that
"claims, after being proved, may,
Page 204 U. S. 101
for the purpose of allowance, be filed by the claimants in the
court where the proceedings are pending, or before the referee if
the case has been referred."
Subsection
d provides that
"claims which have been duly proved shall be allowed, upon
receipt by or upon presentation to the court, unless objection to
their allowance shall be made by parties in interest, or their
consideration be continued for cause by the court upon its own
motion."
Subsection
n provides that "claims shall not be proved
against a bankrupt estate subsequent to one year after the
adjudication."
If the presentation and delivery of these proofs of claim in the
case before us with the trustee was sufficient within the meaning
of the Bankruptcy Act, then the referee should have proceeded to
determine the question of their allowance, when presented to him,
the same as if they had been filed with him personally within the
year subsequent to adjudication.
We have been referred to no case in this Court deciding the
exact question, nor is there cited any case in the lower courts
wherein it has been decided, with the exception of that of
In
re Seff, District Court of United States, Southern District of
New York (not reported), where the question before us seems to have
been directly before that court, and the decision was in favor of
the sufficiency of the filing with the trustee. The parties hereto
have cited a great many cases in the lower courts deciding
questions somewhat analogous to the one now before us, but none in
which this question has been decided. We therefore think it
unnecessary to refer to them.
We are of opinion, taking into consideration the various
provisions of the fifth-seventh section of the Bankruptcy Act, in
connection with No. 21 of the General Orders in Bankruptcy, adopted
by this Court, that the presentation and delivery of proofs of
claim to the trustee in bankruptcy within the year after the
adjudication is a filing within the statute and the general order
above mentioned.
The General Orders of this Court are provided for by section
Page 204 U. S. 102
30 of the Bankruptcy Act, which enacts that
"all necessary rules, forms, and orders as to procedure and for
carrying this cat into force and effect shall be prescribed, and
may be amended from time to time, by the Supreme Court of the
United States."
Under that section, this Court had the power to provide, as it
has done in Order 21, that "proofs of debt received by any trustee
shall be delivered to the referee to whom the cause is referred."
There is nothing in that provision inconsistent with, or opposed
to, anything stated in the bankruptcy law upon the subject, and we
must therefore take the statute and the order and read them
together, the order being simply somewhat of an amplification of
the law with respect to procedure, but nothing which can be
construed as beyond the powers granted to the court by virtue of
the law itself. The question is not whether anyone but the court or
referee can pass upon a claim and allow it or disallow it. That
must be done by the court or referee; but it is simply whether a
delivery of a claim, properly proved, to the trustee, is a
sufficient filing. The law provides, subsection
c of § 57,
that the claims, after being proved, may, for the purpose of
allowance, be filed by the claimants in the court where the
proceedings are pending, or before the referee, if the case has
been referred; but that does not prohibit their being filed
somewhere else prior to their allowance, and the order in
bankruptcy in substance provides that they may be filed, after
being proved, with the trustee. Such order is equivalent to saying
that proofs of debt (or claim) may be received by the trustee. When
they are so received by him, they are in legal effect received by
the court, whose officer the trustee is. Having been received by
the trustee, under authority of law, the proofs of debt are thereby
sufficiently filed so far as the creditors are concerned, and it is
the duty of the trustee to deliver them to the referee. If the
trustee inadvertently neglects to perform that duty, it is the
neglect of an officer of the court, and the creditors are in no way
responsible therefor. The presentation and filing have been made
within the time provided for and with one of the proper
Page 204 U. S. 103
officers, his failure to deliver to the referee cannot be held
to be a failure on the part of the creditor to properly file his
proofs.
Not much benefit can be derived from an examination of the
Bankruptcy Act of 1867 in reference to the provisions therein
contained granting power to the justices of the Supreme Court to
frame General Orders for the purpose named.
See § 10,
Bankruptcy Act of 1867. We think it plain that, so far as this
matter is concerned, the Supreme Court had full power to make the
general order it did.
Different considerations, however, apply to the one claim made
by the trustee himself. We do not think that, in any event, a
trustee could file with himself his proof of his own claim against
the estate of the bankrupt. General principles of law forbid that
he should so act in his own case. And his delivery of his own claim
to his attorney could not make such delivery stand in the place of
a delivery to the referee.
These views lead to a reversal of the order of the circuit court
of appeals, and the affirmance of the order made by the district
court, with the modification, refusing the filing of the proof of
claim of the trustee himself.
And it is so ordered.
