National Bank Cases (Volume 3); Containing All Decisions of Both the Federal and State Courts Relating to National Banks, from 1878 to [1889] Also, the Acts Relating to National Banks (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1889. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... Monongakela National Bank v. Overholt. nipt. Every reason which in case of the death of the debtor, without bankruptcy, would give the right of action to hia administrator or executor as his legal representative, applies with full force to the assignee in bankruptcy if his estate is, during his life-time, administered in a court of bankruptcy." A number of cases are to same purpose, among them Wright v. First National Bank of Greensburg, IS Nat. Bank. Reg. 87; 2 Nat. Bank Cas. 138. Nichols v. Bellows, 22 Vt. 581; 54 Am. Dec. 85, a case under the usury laws of Vermont, seems to support the view that the action is not assignable. In Gray v. Bennett, 3 Mete. 522, a wellconsidered case, it was decided that an insolvent debtor's right of action for recovery of threefold the amount of interest paid by him on a usurious contract, passes by the assignment of his estate, and his assignee may maintain a bill in equity to recover it. It was there claimed that the statute forfeiting threefold the amount of interest reserved, being in its nature penal, it resolves the demand into a mere claim for redress for a personal tort, which cannot be assigned. But the court, upon a careful review of the cases touching the principle, held that the threefold act, while penal to some extent in its consequences, is so far remedial that it has the like privilege of liberal construction with those statutes which are wholly remedial; that the interest of the insolvent debtor was a vested interest and not a mere personal right, and unless it can be clearly shown by the statute that such an interest was not intended to be passed to the assignee, it becomes, by force of the assignment, vested in him. The weight of authority, and what we deem the better reasoning, impel to the conclusio...