In the Matter of E. v. Moore of California, Inc., a Corporation, Bankrupt. Orlando J. Bowman, Trustee in Bankruptcy v. Bay Area Painters Trust Fund

The Bay Area Painters Trust Fund was the trustee into whose hands employers of union painters were, under a collective bargaining agreement between the painters’ union and the Painting Contractors Association, required to pay sums of money which were intended, under the agreement, to be paid over by the trustee to the individual painters who had worked for members of the Contractors Association. The money involved in this appeal is “vacation pay” and “holiday pay" which the individual employers were obliged, under the contract to pay into the trust fund, for the benefit of the individual painters. The payment of these amounts to the trustee, rather than directly to the individual workman was convenient because a painter might, in the course of a period of time, work for several or many different contractors.

The union contract provided for payments by each employer into the vacation trust fund of 20 cents for each hour that the painter had worked for that employer and 10 cents into the holiday trust fund for each hour.

When bankruptcy proceedings were instituted in the ease of E. V. Moore of California, Inc., the bankrupt painting contractor was in default to the vacation trust…