Colton

This is an action by the assignee of A. W. Bowman, an insolvent debtor, to recover $20,000, the alleged value of one hundred and twenty shares'of the capital stock of The Bank of California. The nature of the controversy will be sufficiently disclosed by a brief statement of some of the leading facts:—

In May, 1887, the Oakland bank assigned to Chickering all its then existing demands and claims against Bowman and his estate, and in July, 1888, Bowman’s assignee in insolvency, predecessor of the plaintiff! herein, made a tender to the defendant bank of the sum of ten dollars, in payment of any balance then due from Bowman, and demanded a return of said one hundred and twenty shares of pledged stock. This tender was declined and the demand refused, and thereupon this action was commenced on August 16, 1888.

The cause was tried by the court, judgment given for the defendant, and a motion for new trial overruled. Prom the judgment and order the plaintiff appeals. ■

In order to a proper consideration of the real merits of the case, it will be convenient in the first place to dispose of some irrelevant matters that have been brought into it. Besides the facts above stated, the…