Chestnut Street Trust & Saving Fund Company's Assigned Estate

Citations

• 217 Pa. 151
• 66 A. 332
• 1907 Pa. LEXIS 674

Syllabus

<p>Assignment for creditors — Rights of creditors — Principal and surety— Guardian and ward.</p> <p>The rights of creditors of an assigned estate are fixed at the date of the assignment. Only those who are creditors of the assignor at that date are entitled to participate in the distribution of the proceeds of the estate. A creditor is one who had a definite demand against the estate, or a cause of action capable of adjustment and liquidation upon a trial. Debts due in prcesenti and payable in futuro are claims against the assignor, for which his estate is liable in the hands of his assignee. So also are damages resulting from the breach of a contract occurring prior to the assignment.</p> <p>Generally any claim against the assignor which is certain or may be reduced to certainty at the date of the assignment is a debt payable out of the assigned estate, but a claim arising after the date of the assignment will not be allowed to participate in the distribution, nor will the possibility of a claim, depending upon the happening of a contingency in the future, constitute a demand for which the assigned estate is liable. The holders of such claims are not creditors entitled to payment out of the estate of an insolvent assignor.</p> <p>Where a trust company makes an assignment for the benefit of creditors, and delivers to its assignee all of its general assets, but retains and continues to administer its trust funds, and thereafter certain funds held by it as surety for a guardian are stolen by one of the officers of the company, the ward cannot participate as a general creditor in the distribution of the fund in the hands of the assignee for the benefit of creditors, inasmuch as no liability had accrued in favor of the ward at the date of the assignment for tho benefit of creditors.</p>