Nathan Clifford

“ Enough appears in the language of the fourteenth section of the Bankrupt Act to demonstrate the proposition that the instruction of the Circuit Court in that regard was incorrect, nor is the question affected in the least by the fact that the same section provides that such assignment or conveyance shall relate back to the commencement of the proceedings, as the instrument of assignment cannot operate either retrospectively or prospectively before it is executed. ”

“ Whether or not the evidence introduced to prove that an offer to redeem the premises was made at the time was sufficient to avail the defendant as equivalent to a tender, it is not necessary at the present time to decide, but the court is of the opinion that it was of such a character, in view of a recent decision of this court, that it ought to have been submitted to the jury, untrammelled by a prior instruction, which in substance and effect amounted to a direction to the jury that their verdict must be for the plaintiff. ”

“ Until an assignee is appointed and qualified and the conveyance or assignment is made to him, the title to the property, whatever it be, remains in the bankrupt, which is the plain meaning of the fourteenth section of the Bankrupt Act. ”