Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/304

 292 FEDERAL RBPOBTEE. �controversy, has a marketable value, and is as much the subject of purchase and sale as any other stock, and.its own- ership carries with it ail the rights or obligations whieh at- tach to it by virtue of the rulea and regulations of the said loan association, and there is no rule of law to make its pur- chase and sale an exception from that of any other stock. �Throwing aside, for the present, ail questions which may arise under the bankrupt law, we think the sale of these 20 shares by the bankrupt to the complainants was valid, and gave them ail the rights appertaining to sucb stock, after the payaient of ail fines and dues, as was consistent with the terms of the transfer to the incorporation as a collateral security:for the payment of a debt. This court cannot admit the correctnes's of the position assumed by the defendant's soliciter, that no interest in this stock passed by the transfer to the complainants, on the ground that monthly dues were, by the terms of the collateral assignment, to be appropriated to the payment of the mortgage; for, had the corporation exercised the option of proceeding against the mortgaged premises, — -the primary security for the payment of its debt, — and thereby released the stock, to whom could it be said that the stock belonged? Manifestly, to the party pledging it, and who had brought it to its maturity by the payment of its monthly dues, and not to a third party who had contrib- uted no value toward its purchase. If the defendant's posi- tion be true, the Aid Loan, in such case, would be appropriating the money of a etranger to the payment of .its own debt, without affording him the opportunity of recovering the money advanced by him for its benefit. The Aid Loan had the right to elect to proceed against either security for the payment of the sum of $4,000 seeured by the bond and mortgage; and there was nothing in the terms of the pledge of the said stock as collateral security which impaired that right. Having ohosen to rely on the fund pledged as collateral security, i. «., the stock, and having appropriated the same to that pur- pose, it became their duty to tum over to the owner of the stock the primary security, i. «., the mortgage, in order that ����