Steere v. Hoagland

Citations

• 50 Ill. 377

Syllabus

<p>1. Creditor’s ’bill—fraudulent transfer of goods—of the rule for the accounting of the fraudulent purchases'. A sale of goods was made under such circumstances and in such manner as rendered the transaction fraudulent in law as to the creditors of the vendor, although there was no fraudulent intent on the part of the purchaser. To these goods the vendee added new purchases from time to time, to keep up the stock, and the several lots of goods were so intermingled that it could not be known at what prices they were respectively sold. The first stock purchased was less valuable in character and condition than the new purchases which were added to it. Some two or three years after the first transaction, a creditor of the original vendor filed his bill to subject the proceeds of the sales of the goods so fraudulently transferred, to the satisfaction of his debt: Held, that as the admixture of these goods with the balance of the stock, and the failure to keep distinct accounts of their sales, was not for any purpose of concealment, and as it would be impracticable to ascertain the amount for which any of the parcels of goods were actually sold, the rule to govern the master in taking the account is, to charge the defendant with the actual value of the goods. In ascertaining this, the master would be informed in the same way he would be in ascertaining any other value not fixed by the parties interested. Neither the invoice price of the original purchases, nor the price fixed at the fraudulent sale, should govern him, but what was the fair and just value of the goods at the time of the transfer as they then were. In such a case, it would be improper to charge the defendant with an average of the profits received by him for sales of the confused goods—the old as well as the new— merely because he could not render a satisfactory account of the actual amount of the sales of the old goods, as there was no such actual bad faith on his part as ought to subject him to such a