Byron White

“ In view of the text of the bankrupt law, the distinction which it makes between the general discharge and the right of a particular creditor to be exempt from the operation of such discharge, it needs but statement to demonstrate the difference of cause which necessarily obtains between determining, on the one hand, in favor of the bankrupt, whether he is entitled to a general discharge, and of deciding, on the other, as between a particular creditor and the bankrupt, whether the claim of that creditor is of such a character as to be exempt from the operation of a discharge. ”

“ The theory of election and waiver arising from the proof of the claim in bankruptcy as one upon contract, where the right to sue in tort also existed, must rest upon the assumption that it was within the power of the creditor to exercise an election to come under the operation of the bankruptcy proceedings and thus to be bound by the result of such proceedings, or to stay out and escape the operation of the act. ”

“ Coming to dispose of the first contention, we put out of view as irrelevant must that is urged in argument concerning what constitutes an election and waiver in the general sense, since the question here for decision is only whether there was a waiver or election under and for the purposes of the bankrupt law. ”