Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/85

 ÏAK80N8 V. CA8WELL. 77 �not the bankrupt co-operated in the transactions in question; that is, whether he did or did not, within the meaning of the bankrupt law, secure to these creditors preferences, by pro- curing his property to be taken on executions, for the pur- pose of satisfying the demanda of these judgment creditors. If he did, then no matter what may be the resulting hard- ship to these creditors, these judgments and levies must falL because they were obtained and made within the period before bankruptcy proeeedings were commenced, which enables the assignee to attack them. �In Wilson v. City Bank, 17 Wallace, 473, the supreme court decided that, under a sound construction of the Bankrupt Act, something more than passive non-resistance in an in- solvent debtor is necessary to invalidate a judgment and levy on his property, when the debt is due and he bas no defence; that in such a case there is no legal obligation on the debtor to file a petition in bankruptcy to prevent the judgment and levy ; and that a failure to do so is not sufficient evidence of an intent to give a preference to the judgment creditor, or to defeat the operation of the bankrupt law. The court, speaking through Justice Miller, was at the same time careful to say that "undoubtedly very slight evidence of an affirmative character of the existence of a desire to prefer one creditor, or of acts done with a view to secure such preference; might be sufficient to invalidate the whole transaction. Such evidence might be sufficient to leave the matter to a jury or to support a decree, because the known existence of a motive to prefer, or to defraud the bankrupt act, would color acts or decisions otherwise of no signifioance. These cases must rest on their ovrn circumstances." And it is noticeable of Wilson V. The Bank that it was a case destitute of any evidence of the existence of such a motive, unless it should be imputed, as a conclusion of law, from faets which the court did not think raised such an implication. Each case, then, must rest on its own circumstances, and it is apparent that the rule declared by the supreme court, that slight evidence of an affirmative character of the existence of acts done with a view to secure a preference may be sufficient to invalidate the ��� �