Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/832

 TRUSTEES MUT. BUILDING FUND, ETC., ». BOSSEIOT. 825 �full of authority to him to sue for and recover property, rights, and credits where the bankrupt could not have sustained the action, and to set aside as yoid transactions by which the bankrupt himself would be bound." This passage is quoted to show how large the powers of the assignee in bankruptcy are considered to be by the court of highest authority in the land, and that they embrace not only the right of the assignee to sue where the bankrupt, if he had remained solvent, could have sued, but the right to sue in a large class of cases also in which the bankrupt could not have sued. So that I think it is plain that the statute vests the fruits of the rights in equity and choses in action, which it authorizes assignees in bankruptcy to sue upon, in the assignee, as assets of the bank- ruptcy estate, and makes the fruit of the present suit, if suc- cessful, such assets. �The law, as before remarked, does not authorize assignees in bankruptcy to bring actions of tort for damages, such as the bankrupt himself might have brought. But the present suit is not an action at law in tort for damages either in form or theory. It is a proceeding in equity, in which complain- ants set out how the property and capital of the bankrupt was squandered in numerous instances ; charge the defend- ants with responsibility for the losses described ; and demand, not damages either in name or nature, but restitution of f unds lost through imbecile inattention and reckless negligence. �The suit falls within the broad terms of section 5046 of the bankruptcy act, and is not within either of the limitations which narrow the provisions of that law. �Assuming, then, that complainants had a right to sue, we have to inquire whbther they should not have sued at law, and can maintain their bill in equity. The authorities cited by counsel for the defence, against the competency of com- plainants to maintain their suit, do not seem to me to estab- lish the points for which they contend. �The case of Re Crockett and Schravime, 2 Am. Law Times Eepts. 21, Bankruptcy Division, settles nothing as to the case at bar. That was a proceeding of a bankrupt firm to sub- ject a former member of their partnership to bankruptcy. ����