Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/124

 112 FEDERAL REPORTER. �judgment on which he was appointed. The question necessarily involved the nature and estent of a receiver's claim, by virtue o£ his appointaient as receiver, upon property fraudulently assigned. In the opinion of the court, Graver, J., says : �" He acquires no right to the property (fraudulently assigned) by succession to the riglits of the debtor ; * * * no rights {i. e., of property) other than those of the debtor are acquired. He does iiot acquire the legal title to such property by his appointment. That is cmifiiied to property then owned by the debtor; and the fraudulent transferee of property acquires a good title thereto as against the debtor and all other persons, except the cred- itors of .the transferror. The only right of the receiver is, therefore, as trustee of the creditors. The latter have the right to set aside the trans- fer and to recover the property from the fraudulent holder ; and the re- ceiver is by law invested with all the rights of all the creditors represented by him in this respect. It is clear that the right of the receiver, repre- senting the creditors and acting in their behalf, is no greater than that of the creditors." "They, (the assignees,)" he continues, "have the right to retain the property until the superior right of creditors to divest them of it is shown. This right of creditors they have the right to litigate in respect to each cred- itor. " Pages 385, 386. �In the court below it was not held that the receiver took title to Buch property upon his appointment, but only "upon the court declar- ing such transfer void." Bostwick v. Beiser, 10 Abb. 197. Not only is the whole reasoning and language of the opinion in the court of appeals very clear that no title vested in the receiver to such property by the mere fact of his appointment, but the decision that the re- ceiver can recover only sufficient to satisfy the particular debt set forth in the bill, is ineompatable with his having any general title to the whole assigned property; and if he has no title to the whole, there is no specifie part which he can separate from the rest to which he can lay any claim of title. �Such fraudulent transfers, therefore, are no more absolutely void as respects such areceiver than as respects judgment creditors themselves. They are avoidable only when assailed at the election of the creditor or receiver, in an action brought for the specifie purpose of setting them aside. High, Rec. § 411. "There is nothing in this respect that a receiver might do that the creditor himself cannot do." Dol- lard v. Taylor, 33 Superior Ct. R. 496, 498. In Becker v. Torrance, 31 N. Y. 637, the court say "the oE&cer [court] could do nothing ex- cept to appoint a person [receiver] who should represent creditors by commencing and prosecuting such a suit." And in Underwood v. Sut- eliffe, 77 N. Y. 62, Andrews, J., says : ��� �