Opinion
Decided December, 1880.
FOREIGN ATTACHMENT. The facts appeared in the disclosure of the Indian Head National Bank, trustee. The defendants, being indebted to the bank, assigned to the bank, by a written instrument, all accounts and claims due them, with the right to collect the same in the defendants' names, and apply the proceeds towards the payment of the debt secured by the assignment. The defendants' books of account were delivered to the bank, who made some collections thereon; but the debt secured by the assignment has been paid from other property of the defendants, attached by the bank. On the plaintiffs' motion, the bank was charged as trustee for the books, and the money collected on them by the bank; and a receiver for the books was appointed. The defendants excepted.
Sawyer Sawyer, Jr., for the defendants.
E. S. H. A. Cutter, for the plaintiffs. The trustee is chargeable for the books as "chattels," within the meaning of s. 22, c. 249, Gen. Laws, as "personal property subject to * * pledge or other lien," within the meaning of s. 27, and as "choses in action," which s. 28 authorizes the receiver to collect.
The books are within the letter of the law of foreign attachment. The trustee has no claim upon them and no interest in them, and, having no interest in the question whether the trustee is chargeable for them, did not object to the orders made at the trial term; and the defendants have not attempted to maintain their exception. There is a question whether the books are in any way available for the payment of the defendants' debt to the plaintiffs through the process of receivership. If the defendants desire a consideration of that question, they can be heard on a motion to discharge the receiver, or on a motion of the plaintiffs for an order directing the receiver to take such a course as the plaintiffs may contend will be legally practicable.
Exception overruled.
STANLEY, J., did not sit: the others concurred.