In the Matter of the Accounting of Alfred P. Reynolds, as Assignee of Lemuel Dobbs, for the Benefit of Creditors

In the Matter of the Accounting of Alfred P. Reynolds, as Assignee of Lemuel Dobbs, for the Benefit of Creditors. (Argued June 3, 1879; decided June 17, 1879.) This was an appeal by the assignee above named from an order of General Term, affirming an order of the County Court of Kings county, confirming the report of a referee appointed to settle the accounts of the assignee, and directing certain payments to be made by him. The case was put upon the motion calendar. The appellant asked, upon the argument, that it be stricken from said calendar and put upon the regular calendar. The court denied the níotioú, stating that although technically, perhaps the appellant was right, yet the court had the control of the calendar, and could have given the case the preference, to which the denial of the motion was equivalent; that after hearing the case on the merits, it would be a bootless thing to grant the motion, thus putting the case on the general calendar to be re-argued. The case was decided principally upon the facts. The county court ordered that the assignee be attached for contempt, unless he pay over the sum found due from him. The contempt n alleged was in not filing a detailed account of the affairs of the estate. Held, that the order was, in effect, a punishment by fine to the amount of the sum stated; that inasmuch as the assignee had filed an account upon which the parties had been content to go to an accounting, and which the courts below seem to have been satisfied with, the assignee, if he has not purged himself of the contempt, has not laid himself liable to so heavy a punishment. The order appealed from was, therefore, modified as stated below. J. F. Mosher for appellant. ■JF. Colhern for respondent. [MAJORITY — Folger, J.,] Folger, J., reads for modification of order by striking out that part of it which grants the motion to attach the assignee, and, as modified, affirmed. All concur. Ordered accordingly.