Joseph McKenna

“ Debt includes any debt, demand, or claim provable in bankruptcy. Transfer includes the sale and every other and different mode of disposing of or parting with property, or the possession of property, absolutely or conditionally, as a payment, pledge, mortgage, gift, or security.
Appellant deduces from these definitions that no question of a preference can arise except when the transfer is made to the owner of a provable claim, or to his agent, and that no claim is provable except when enumerated in § 63a, and none other can be liquidated under paragraph b. ”

“ There is no other remedy, is the repeated insistence, and that only after a final accounting has been had in the probate court, showing a liquidated balance due from the accountant. Then, and not until then, as we understand appellant, a creditor emerges with a provable claim. Appellant, however, halts somewhat at the logic of his argument, and ventures to say that a decision in his favor does not necessarily involve a decision that a claim upon the bond of the defaulting trustee could not be proved for a dividend in the name of the probate judge. ”

“ What, then, stands in the way of setting the transfer aside? The debt was not a provable one in bankruptcy, it is contended, and on that contention the case is rested, and to it we may direct our considerations, and in that the provisions of the statute become necessary elements.
'A person shall be deemed to have given a preference, if, being insolvent, he has, within four months before the filing of the petition, . . . made a transfer of any of his property, and the effect of the enforcement of such . ”

“ In this, we think, the court was right. Equality between creditors is necessarily the ultimate aim of the bankrupt law, and to obtain it we must regard the essential nature of transactions, not their forms or accidents. ”

“ Founded on an open account, or upon a contract, express or implied.' The final contention of appellant is that one, to receive a preference, must be a creditor of the bankrupt upon a contract, express or implied. It is not enough that there be some kind of legal or equitable claim against the bankrupt. These postulates laid down, he builds upon them an argument of great technicality to show that the trusts of Shaw were not his creditors, and therefore could not receive from him a preference. ”