Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/815

 ADAMS V. TBBBBLIi, ���801 ���înquiry by asserting or assuming that it possessea ît. The validity of the proceedings of the hankrupt court, under ■which defendant claims, are therefore open to attack in this case. �We are next to inquire -whether the individual property of the estate of Jones could be drawn into and administered in the bankrupt court by a prooeeding against the firm, of which, Vfhen alive, he had been a member. Whatever power the bankrupt court possessea over the subject of bankruptcies it derives exclusively from the bankrupt act. Power not oon- ferred by that act it does not possess. We look in vain througb its sections to find any authority conferred to put the estate of a deceased person into bankruptcy. The two- fold purpose which the bankrupt act bas in view, viz., the equal and just distribution of the bankrupt's estate amoug his creditors, and the discharge of the bankrupt from bis debts, does not require the application of the law to the estate of the deceased person. The laws of the states provide for an equitable and just distribution of the decedent's estate, and death bas already discharged him of ail personal liability. The bankrupt law could, in the case of a deceased person, aceomplish nothing not already accomplished without it. �While there is no direct authority given by the bankrupt act over the estates of deceased persons, the implication from what is expressed is strongly against such a jurisdiction. Sec- tion 12 of the act (Eev. St. 5090) declares, if the debtor dies after the issuing of the warrant, the proceedings may be con- tinued and concluded in like manner as if he had lived; that is, the estate of a deceased may be administered after his death if the court bas acquired jurisdiction over it in his life- time. ^ �This excludes the idea that such jurisdiction is conferred nnless it is acquired during the life-time of the bankrupt. It bas, therefore, been held that if the debtor, in a case of invol- untary bankruptcy, dies after the issuing of the order to show cause and before the trial, the proceedings abate, they being analogous to actions at law for torts which abate on the death of the party. McDonald, 8 B. R. 237. �v.4,no.9 — 51 ����