Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/358

 CAMFBEIili V. JAMES. 351 �a cause or causes of action ail the while from the time when he began to infringe to the time of the asBignment in favor of Eddy. Eddy's right to recover upon these causes of action, so far as they had aocrued up to that time, was a chose in action. Choses in action are expressly named in the assign- ment to trustees, and by force of those words it would carry this daim. But his title to the patent remained, and thô further question is as to what became of that. The words of the assignment are probably broad enough to cover it. Sim- ilar -words were held to be suffieient for such a purpose in Railroad Co. v. Trimhle, 10 Wall. 367. Still there is excepted , out of the individual property of the assignors ail property exempt by law from levy and sale under execution. If this means such property as is specially exempt by express pro- visions of the statutes, the right to the patent is not included among the classes of such property. �But the exception is not of the property exempt from stat- ute, but of the property exempt by law. Property can be levied upon and sold under execution at ail only by force of law. Such property as cannot by law be taken is by law exempt. This patent-right could not, by law, be so levied upon and sold, and was, therefore, by law exempt. This conveyance, too, is understood to be such a conveyance for the benefit of creditors as the law of New York sanctions and upbolds, for appropriating the property of debtors to the payment of their debts, in place of legal proceedings, to ]udg- ment, execution and levy for that purpose. It is to be con- strued like other written instruments, in the light of the circumstances, and its professed object for the purpose of ascertaining the intention of the parties. �In this view it may be well understood that the intention was to place in the hands of the assignees what the creditors could otherwise reach, and to except out of this clause what they could not reach. This consideration aids the conclusion that this patent-right was excepted and not conveyed. �Probably these distinctions were not actually thought of, and, very likely, the actual effect of the instrument upon other property was not ; but the instrument was properlj- made ����