A Saloon Debt, a Partnership, and a Judge’s Ruling on Fraud
A Tacoma liquor wholesaler tried to attach Olympia and Tenino saloons over $700; the court said the property shuffle wasn’t enough to prove fraudulent intent.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The attachment proceedings in the case of Langert vs. Sloan and Deer were argued yesterday before Judge Robinson on a motion to dissolve the attachment. Langert is a wholesale liquor dealer at Tacoma and brought suit and attached the saloons of Sloan and Deer at Tenino and that of Sloan at Olympia for a debt of $700, claiming that they were co-partners at both places and that they had assigned their property with intent to defraud their creditors.
The question decided is an interesting one, and in passing upon the motion the judge said:
“The facts show that one of the defendants, who are sued as co-partners, has transferred his co-partnership interest in certain Tenino real and personal property to his partner, and these transfers are offered in support of the intent to defraud; and without discussing them in detail, I am convinced that these facts are insufficient to uphold this attachment. This property in the hands of the co-partners is not beyond the reach of execution against the defendants as co-partners. The disposition of property with intent to delay or defraud creditors, considered in the light of our attachment law, must apply to property which would be subject to execution when judgment was secured and such as will prima facie place the same beyond the reach of judgment liens or the execution of creditors. Unless the party places the property in a condition requiring judicial action before a legal levy can be made and the same subjected in payment of debt, then in legal judgment there has been no transfer sufficient to furnish a basis for attachment proceedings. The motion to discharge the attachment is granted and an exception allowed.”
“The motion to discharge the attachment is granted and an exception allowed.”
A Tacoma wholesaler chasing a $700 debt across Thurston County court shows how tightly liquor, credit and partnership law were tangled in frontier business. Modern courts still wrestle with the same question: when does moving assets between partners look like ordinary business and when does it look like defrauding creditors?
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