Whether the plow company or Reardon, as trustee of the bankrupt estate of Frank Brown, have the better right to certain personal property delivered by Brown to the plow company, is the question to be decided on this record.
The facts pertinent to the controversy are these: Brown was a merchant and engaged in business at Pekin, Tazewell county, Illinois. On November 13, 1907, he confessed judgment for $247.15 and $400 and costs in favor of a creditor, the Peoria Cordage Company, a corporation, and on the same day an execution was issued, which was received and indorsed by the sheriff of Tazewell county on the following day. On November 23, 1907, Brown confessed judgment in favor of another creditor, the D. M. Sechler Carriage Company, a corporation, for the sum of $282.25 and $400, with costs, and on the same day execution issued, and on the next day was received and indorsed by the sheriff of Tazewell county. While these executions were outstanding and unsatisfied, Brown, on November 25, 1907, delivered merchandise, consisting of gang plows, cultivators, and other farm implements of the value of $500, to the Rock Island Company, appellant, and as the result of the transaction an indebtedness of Brown to the plow company of $406 was extinguished. When the goods were delivered to the plow company, Brown was insolvent, and the plow company had reason to believe that such was the fact. Two days after the delivery of the property to the plow company, Brown filed a petition in voluntary bankruptcy, and Reardon was subsequently qualified as trustee of the bankrupt estate.
Seeking to avail of the provisions of § 67, paragraphs c and f of the bankruptcy act, the trustee, on January 21, 1908, filed with the referee a petition setting forth the obtaining of the judgments by the Sechler and cordage companies heretofore referred to, that the executions issued on those judgments were liens from the date of receipt by the sheriff on all the real and personal property of the bankrupt located in Tazewell county, Illinois, and continued to be liens down to the date of the filing of the petition in bankruptcy, and prayed that the liens of said executions might be declared null and void as to the Sechler and cordage companies, but might be preserved served for the benefit of the estate in bankruptcy. The creditors just named entered their appearance and consented that the prayer of the petition be granted, and an order was entered on the date when the petition was filed, granting the relief sought.