Appeal of Ralston

Citations

• 169 Pa. 254
• 32 A. 454
• 1895 Pa. LEXIS 1088

Syllabus

<p>Assignee for the benefit of creditors — Purchase of claims by assignee against the estate — Presumption—Rights of personal representative of assignor and assignee.</p> <p>Where the assignee for the benefit of creditors purchases claims against the assigned estate at a discount, he will not be allowed to recover dividends upon such claims to an amount greater than he paid for them; and where there is no direct evidence that he purchased them for his own benefit, the presumption is that the purchase was made for the benefit of the assigned estate; andjvhere the specific dividends declared upon the claims purchased by him had been received by the assignee in his lifetime or by his personal representatives after his death, that is not sufficient to give the latter standing to contest the claim of the personal representative of the assignor to a fund consisting of dividends declared upon claims of other creditors remaining unclaimed in the hands of the substituted assignee.</p> <p>Special assignment for the benefit of releasing creditors — Rights of assignor against creditors to pro rata shares which remain unclaimed by other creditors.</p> <p>Where a debtor makes an assignment of a portion of his property for the benefit of releasing creditors, with the direction in the deed of assignment that the fund is to be distributed pro rata among them, and that the shares of those creditors who refuse to sign the release are to revert to the assignor, the releasing creditor becomes thereby a purchaser for value of a share in the fund pro rata with other creditors, but he obtains no interest whatever in the pro rata shares of other creditors, and hence a fund consisting of dividends which have remained unclaimed by the creditors on whose claims they were declared for a period of more than twenty-one years is payable to the personal representatives of the original assignor, and not to other unpaid creditors of the assigned estate: Estate of Potter & Page, 54 Pa. 465, followed.<