Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 5.djvu/231

215 THE VALIDITY OF ATTACHMENTS. 21 5 If the case is to be understood, however, as deciding that the title of such assignees would prevail over an attachment perfected abroad before the bankruptcy, it certainly has not represented the law of England for a century. 1 It is perfectly clear that an English court would not enjoin an English creditor from obtaining the fruits of an attachment made before the bankruptcy, and the decision in Dehon v. Foster must rest entirely on the provision of the Massachusetts law dissolving attachments. That law does not purport to dissolve attachments made without the State, and in this differs from the provisions in all bankrupt laws vesting the title in the bankrupt's property in the assignees. Nor would the courts of another State on any principle of comity give an extra-territorial effect to the Massa- chusetts law dissolving attachments 2 as they would to the law vesting title to the bankrupt's movables in his assignee, with the limitation that it would not be allowed to operate injuriously to the citizens of the State whose laws are invoked to carry it into effect. The decision in Dehon v. Foster must therefore be regarded as a distinct step in advance of the English law. The court meets this as follows : " To the suggestion that the attachment of the defendants was prior in point of time to the institution of the pro- ceedings in insolvency, the answer is, that, on the facts stated in the bill, such priority does not impair the plaintiff's equity. We doubt very much whether the fact would be at all material, even if the attachment was made bona fide, and without any intent to defeat the operation of our insolvent laws ; because it tends to contravene the clear intent of our statutes, which aim to vest in the assignee all the property of the debtor which could have been assigned by him or taken on execution against him at the time of the commencement of insolvent proceedings, ' although the same is then attached on mesne process as the property of the debtor.' 1 Cook's Bankrupt Laws, 6th ed., 326 ; Ex parte Dobree, Ex parte Le Mesurier, 8 Ves. 82; Re Chapman, L. R. 15 Eq. 75. 2 Kidder v. Tufts, 48 N. H. 121. In this case it was held that citizens of Massachusetts who had attached property in New Hampshire and were prosecuting their attachments to judgment after proceedings in insolvency had been instituted in Massachusetts against their debtor were entitled to do so, and that any remedy must be in the form of an in- junction by the Massachusetts court against its own citizens. See, also, Pane v. Lester, 44 Conn. 196; Rhawn v. Pearce, no 111. 350; Hibernia National Bank v. Lacombe, 84 N. Y. 367.