Caulfield v. Van Brunt

Citations

• 173 Pa. 428
• 34 A. 230
• 1896 Pa. LEXIS 724

Syllabus

<p>Equitable assignment — Gontingent and expeciedpayments — Intent to assign and accept.</p> <p>Equity will support assignments of contingent and expected payments where the agreements are fairly entered into and it would not be against public policy to enforce them; and anything which shows an intent to assign on one side and receive on the other, will operate as an equitable assignment.</p> <p>Sale — Change of possession — Bailment.</p> <p>The retention of possession by a debtor of personal property which he has sold misleads his creditors, and is therefore constructively fraudulent as to them; but where the chattel is in the actual physical possession of another than a debtor at the time of the transfer, no creditor can be misled to his hurt.</p> <p>If a chattel sold be in the actual possession of the bailee of the debtor, and the vendor does not retake possession, the sale is good as against creditors.</p> <p>Sale — Change of possession — Chattel mortgage — Bailment—Fraud—Constructive fraud — Foreign attachment.</p> <p>B. was the owner of a machine upon which he had given a chattel mortgage in New York to defendant. The mortgage was not recorded, and under the laws of New York was therefore not a lien upon the machine. While the machine was in B.’s possession in New York, he sold it to M. & W. under an optional sale, and delivered it to them in Philadelphia. A bill of sale was rendered to M. & W. by B. in his own name. B. subsequently agreed with defendant that the purchase money of the M. & W. machine should be appropriated towards payment of the mortgage debt. He accordingly forwarded a note to M. & W. to be signed by them, and in the letter inclosing it he said it was to be transferred to defendant. On the following day defendant wrote to M. & W. stating that B. had assigned to him the purchase money, and requesting them to send to him the note. M. & W. subsequently claimed that the machine was not satisfactory and refused to accept it. While still in M. & W.