Bughman v. Central Bank

Citations

• 159 Pa. 94
• 28 A. 209
• 1893 Pa. LEXIS 1482

Syllabus

<p>Sale — Contract—Fraud—Insolvency—Title—Evidence.</p> <p>An intention of an insolvent buyer at the time of the purchase not to pay will not amount to a fraud, unless some false representation, trick or artifice, or conduct which involves a false representation, be added. Smith v. Smith, 21 Pa. 367, criticised but reaffirmed.</p> <p>The Supreme Court will not however extend this rule a step beyond what the authorities require. Any additional circumstance which tends to show trick, artifice, false representation, or conduct which reasonably involves a false representation, will take the case out of the rule.</p> <p>Insolvency and knowledge of it at the time of the sale are evidence to go to the jury with other facts to show intended fraud, though they are not sufiicient by themselves.</p> <p>If a purchaser about the time of the delivery of the goods confesses judgment and gives a bill of sale to a creditor of substantially all his assets, and disables himself from continuing business, he commits an act of legal if not actual fraud, and acquires no title to the goods.</p> <p>Bill of sale — Antecedent debt — Payment—Burden of proof.</p> <p>The taking of a bill of sale in payment and satisfaction of a prior debt is a taking for value that shuts out the equities of the original vendor of the goods passing by the bill of sale; but in such a case if the purchase was a fraudulent one by the vendee, the burden of proof is on the creditor taking the bill of sale to show that he took it in payment of the debt.</p>