Whitefish Lumber Company v. Industrial Supply Company, Whitefish Plywood Corporation v. William L. Royer, Trustee

These two separate appeals involve involuntary bankruptcy proceedings taken against Whitefish Lumber Company, a corporation engaged in the sawmill and lumber business at Whitefish, Montana. In the first case, the bankrupt appeals from the district court’s order sustaining the adjudication of bankruptcy. In the second case, Whitefish Plywood Corporation, a creditor of the bankrupt appeals from the district court’s order appointing an attorney for the trustee in bankruptcy. In both cases we are satisfied that the orders of the district court must be affirmed for the reasons set forth by the district court in unpublished orders and opinions appearing in the records before this court. In one respect, however, we feel that the issues presented, from the point of precedential usefulness, warrant an opinion by this court.

The act of bankruptcy asserted by the petitioning creditors was a preferential transfer by the bankrupt: the giving (on July 15, 1958, and within four months from the filing of the original bankruptcy petition) of a chattel mortgage to secure an antecedent debt. The mortgage was given in renewal of a previous chattel mortgage filed April 26,1956, as to which the period…