Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/900

 IN BB KEAFT. i893 �which creditors bave been beld tp be estopped by their own consent to an act from alleging it against their debtor, eithea: as proof of an act of bankruptcy on the questiop of bis adju- dication, or- as a fraudulent conveyance upon the question of iis discharge. U may be taken as; settled that a crediter wbo assents to the making oi an assignment or otber convey- ance, which, but for such absent, would be an act, of bank- ruptcy or would preclude a discharge, cannot allege the same agaiust the debtor for either ^urpose. The ground ofihe rule is that to allow him to do so would be inconsistent with gpod faith and fair dealing, encourage, deceit, and put it within.the power of creditor3 to entrap the debtor by inducing hinji.to commit acts apparently fraudulent as to them, which they intend afterwards to repudiate to bis disadvantage. To thia extent the application of the principle of estoppel in pai$ clearly goes. Johnson v. Eogers, 15 N. B. E. 1 ; In re Schuy-- 1er, 2 N. B. E. 549 ; In re Langley, 1 N. B. E. 559, 565; In re Williams, 14 N. B. E. 132; In re Massachusetts Brick Co. 5 N. B. E. 408, 412. The limit of the rule, however, is pl^inly in- dicated by Judge Blatchf ord, in In re Schuyler, 2 N. B. E. 549, 551, where he says that the creditors are estopped from ques- tioning the assignment "by reason of the fact that those credit- ors, while enjoying the free election of ratifying or repudia- ting the assignment, bave chosen to ratify it." If, then, the crediter bas done any act which amounts to a prier assent to the assignnient, or if, having it in bis power to dissent, re- pudiate, and avoid it, he fails to do so, he may be taken to have assented to it, and will be estopped to allege it against the debtor, as done against his rights and without bis con- sent. �This, it seems to me, is the utmost extent to which the estoppel goes. If the credîtor could make the assignment the ground for putting the debtor into bankruptcy, as he could down to the amendment of the bankrupt law in 1874, upon his petition alone, or as he can do under the English bankrupt law, then the failure to take this course may well be deemed an assent to what the debtor bas done. Having power to undo the act, he lets it pass and is deemed to ����