Nathan Clifford

“ That any person residing and owing debts . . . who being bankrupt or insolvent, or in contemplation of bankruptcy or insolvency, shall . . . give any warrant to confess judgment, or procure or suffer his property to be taken on legal process with intent to give a preference to one or more of his creditors . ”

“ Where the creditor institutes proceedings for the recovery of his just debt in the State court, and obtains a judgment which is a lien upon the debtor's land, or takes out an execution, which is a lien upon his personal property, the debtor cannot divest such lien by afterwards applying for the Bankrupt law.
3. The acceptance of a warrant of attorney to confess judgment by a creditor from a debtor known to be insolvent is not in itself a fraud upon other creditors ”

“ Such circumstances unexplained would certainly have some tendency to show that the debtor procured his property to be seized on the execution with a view to give a preference to the favored creditor, but it is not necessary further to define in this case the force and effect of such an instrument as evidence to support such a charge, as other evidence was introduced by the plaintiff to prove that issue, which is conclusively established by the verdict of the jury. ”

“ Well-founded doubts may arise whether even what the debtor did in opposition to the enforcement of the judgment was material to the issue between the parties, as the whole matter, when the debtor gave the note and warrant to confess judgment, passed entirely beyond his control. ”

“ If Burns, the debtor, conspired with the Pittsburg creditors to petition under the Bankrupt law, not in good faith for the purpose of being discharged, but merely as a means of defeating the rights of the Clarion Bank, then the petition and the proceedings under it were a fraud upon the bank, which takes away all title from the assignee to recover in this action either for the use of the debtor or the creditors. ”

“ Experience has shown the rule to be a sound one and one safe to be applied in criminal as well as civil cases. Exceptions to it undoubtedly may arise, as where the consequences likely to flow from the act are not matters of common knowledge, or where the act or the consequence flowing from it is attended by circumstances tending to rebut the ordinary probative force of the act or to exculpate the intent of the agent. ”

“ Persons of sound mind and discretion must in general be understood to intend, in the ordinary transactions of life, that which is the necessary and unavoidable consequences of their acts, as they are supposed to know what the consequences of their acts will be in such transactions. ”

“ The thirty-ninth section does not apply to this case, and as the thirty-fifth section does not specify, among the acts it exhibits, as does the thirty-ninth section, 'the giving any warrant to confess judgment,' no recovery can be had under that section, and the verdict of the jury must be for the defendant.'This charge the court refused to give. ”