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 NOTES OF RECENT CASES

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NOTES OF THE MOST IMPORTANT RECENT CASES COMPILED BY THE EDITORS OF THE NATIONAL REPORTER SYSTEM AND ANNOTATED BY SPECIALISTS IN THE SEVERAL SUBJECTS (Copies of tbe pamphlet Reporters containing full reports of any of these decisions may be secured from the West Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, at 35 cents each. In ordering, the title of the desired case should be given as well as the citation of volume and page of the Reporter in which it is printed.)

P»BANKRUPTCY. (Life Insurance Policies.) U. S. D. C., N. Y. — One phase of a question which seems to be giving the Federal Courts some little trouble is quite extensively treated in Van Kirk v. Vermont Slate Co., 140 Federal Reporter, 38. The court there holds that the right of a bank rupt to a life insurance policy having a cash sur render value provided for in the contract, on payment of such value to the trustee as provided in Bankruptcy Act, July i, 1898, c. 541, § yoa (U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3451), is not affected by his death after adjudication, but passes to his legal representatives, nor is such right lost by the failure of the bankrupt or such representa tives to make a tender of the surrender value until the expiration of thirty days after such value has been ascertained and stated to the trus tee by the company. It is also said that a bona fide assignee of life insurance policies, pledged more than four months before the bankruptcy of the pledgor, is entitled to hold the same against the trustee in bankruptcy and on application to the court to have their value .determined pur suant to the section of the Bankruptcy Act quoted. This provision of the act, however, is said to apply only to policies which by their pro visions give the bankrupt the right to surrender the same and receive a fixed or ascertainable sum therefor, so that policies giving no such contract right pass to the trustee as assets of the estate as of the date of adjudication free from any right or claim of the bankrupt. BANKRUPTCY. (Receivers — Power to Act Outside of District.) U. S. D. C., Wis. — A ques tion which the presiding judge regards as one of interest to the profession and of great importance in the administration of the bankrupt act is raised in the case of In re Benedict, 140 Federal Reporter, 55. Bankr. Act, c. 41, § 2 (U. S. Comp. St. i go i, p. 3421), which defines courts of bankruptcy and their jurisdiction within their respective territorial limits is construed as con

taining nothing which authorizes such a court to confer upon a receiver appointed thereunder but who is not vested with title to the 'bankrupt's property, the power to exercise his official func tions in respect to such property in any other district, so that under the general rule governing courts of equity and their receivers appointed in creditors' suits, such receiver has no authority to act officially outside of the district of his ap pointment. It is, however, said that in view of full equity powers conferred on courts of bank ruptcy by the chapter mentioned, such courts may, so far as necessary to enforce the act, em ploy the procedure, writs, and remedies known to equity jurisprudence, so that where in invol untary proceedings a receiver has been appointed, a District Court of another district in which prop erty of the alleged bankrupt is situated has power to appoint an ancillary receiver to aid the court of original jurisdiction in preserving such prop erty pending the selection of a trustee. An analysis of the grounds of Judge Quarles' opinion is (a) A receiver in whom the title to assets has not passed, has no authority to do any official act outside the jurisdiction of the court appointing him; (b) Jurisdiction is not expressly provided for in the Bankruptcy Court, (c) Ancillary proceedings were early adopted by the Federal Courts as appro priate and indispensable, (d) By reason of the inherent incidents of the situation, ancillary juris diction and proceedings must exist, and therefore they do exist. The inherent weakness of the decision is its failure to meet such doubts as were suggested by Mr. Justice Jlarhui in 1899 in considering this same question in connection with an ancillary receivership in railways. Justice Harlan denied that there was any inherent ancillary jurisdiction in the United States Circuit Courts in any equity proceedings. Mercantile Trust Company vs. Kanawha R. Co. 39 Fed. 337. Since that decision there has been a well-recog nized difference in the views of the Circuit judges on this question. The latest consideration of the