Clarke v. Rogers

Citations

• 228 U.S. 534
• 33 S. Ct. 587
• 57 L. Ed. 953
• 1913 U.S. LEXIS 2395

Syllabus

<p>The same person, considered in different capacities, may act as the giver and receiver of a fraudulent preference; and so held in a case where a trustee of several trusts, with knowledge of his insolvency, transferred property to one of the trusts to which he was indebted. See Bush v. Moore, 133 Massachusetts, 192.</p> <p>The obligation resting on a defaulting testamentary trustee to restore the value of the assets embezzled is of a contractual character and the debt is provable although it is fraudulent and excepted from the discharge.</p> <p>Under the laws of Massachusetts there may be a contractual obligation of one trust to another for payments improperly made from assets of the latter for the benefit of the former. Bremer v.. Williams, 210 Massachusetts, 256.</p> <p>Section 17 of the Bankruptcy Act enumerates debts provable under § 63a which are not discharged, and among them are included those that arise by the conversion of trust' funds.</p> <p>Equality between creditors is necessarily the ultimate aim of the Bankruptcy act; and even if the dividend be very small, the court will not construe the act so as to allow one creditor to be preferred above the others.</p> <p>There may be unity of the person and difference in capacities, but such unity imputes knowledge of the purpose for which the different capacities were exercised.</p>