Edward Douglass White

“ Besides, as the testimony of the witness Cornwell concerning the statements made by the widow Tornabells was offered only as against her and her children, and not against the other defendants, it clearly results that no prejudicial error could in any event have resulted from the ruling, even on the hypothesis that the administratrix was competent, by a mere admission, to injuriously affect the estate of her minor children, which the court made, in view of its finding as to the rights of the other defendants. ”

“ In the absence of it there is no rule of law preventing a debtor, even when insolvent, for even that does not take from him the power of disposition of his property, and paying his debts with it, or a portion of his debts, and preferring one or more of his creditors with absolute intent to hinder, delay, or even to defeat other creditors. If the favored creditor receives no more than is due him, and permits the debtor to secure no advantage to himself, the transaction will be upheld. ”

“ To contend, as is in effect done in the argument at bar, that the article gives to a creditor a right to sue to rescind any contract made by his insolvent dobtor, simply because, without rescission, the creditor cannot otherwise recover his debt, is to distort the clause by misconceiving its obvious meaning. ”

“ Juan Coll, a partner in the firm of Duran & Coll, also answered, and averred the bona fides of the mortgage executed by Aran y Lanci to his firm, and the transfer thereof made to Valdecillo.
On October 31, 1904, the firm of L. W. & P. Armstrong of New York city, unsecured creditors of Tornabells & Company, were made parties complainant to the bill. Thereafter, Ruffer & Sons, a firm doing business in London, England, and the Caja de Ahorros de Mayaguez, a Porto Rican corporation, as creditors of Tornabells & Company, were also allowed to intervene and become parties complainant. ”

“ This mortgage was in favor of one Baudelio Duran y Cat and a firm styled Duran & Coll. The mortgage in favor of the first was for 130,000 pesos, divided into ten annual instalments of 13,000 pesos each, evidenced by notes to the order of the mortgagee, maturing in each of the ten years, the whole being secured on fourteen of the twenty-six pieces of real estate. The mortgage in favor of Duran & Coll was on five of the pieces of real estate acquired as aforesaid, and secured 20,000 pesos, divided into five instalments of 4,000 pesos each, maturing in each of five years. ”

“ That the proof on behalf of complainants is not sufficient to entitle them to any relief under their bill of complaint.
'2. That there is not now, and never was, any such statute in Porto Rico as the statute of 13th Elizabeth in England, referring to fraudulent conveyances, because we have the civil-law rule here instead of the common law. Every state in the Union has a re-enactment of the statute of Elizabeth in some form or other among its laws. ”