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his right to stay the proceedings on secs. 7, 13 sub-sec. 15, and 13A. The question being brought before the Court of King's Bench on an appeal from this order, the appeal was allowed by a - majority judgment of four to one, and the petition for a staying order was dismissed (Guerin, J., diss.).

It is to be hoped that the notes of Greenshields, J., who rendered the judgment of the court, will be officially reported in extenso. In the meantime, a summary of his reasoning will doubtless be of interest:

The appeal involves two questions: (1) Is the appellant a secured creditor within the meaning of the Act, and (2) If so," was the Court in Bankruptcy competent to give the order or judgment appealed from?

(1) The answer to the first question will depend upon whether or not the appellant can be brought within the definition of sec. 2 (gg) of the Act, which reads: "secured creditor " means a person holding a mortgage, hypothec, pledge, charge, lien or privilege on or against the property of the debtor, or any part thereof, as security for a debt due or accruing due to him from the debtor." It will be noted that this definition includes terms of the Common Law which are not, strictly speaking, known to the Civil Law (e.g., "lien ") and terms of the Civil Law unknown, at least in the same sense, to the Common Law (e.g., "hypothec" and "privilege "). Moreover, the Act makes no attempt to define any of the terms.. Accordingly, it may be presumed that the legislators intended that the definition and construction of these terms should be determined by the laws of the different provinces. One may, therefore, conclude that if by the law of the province in which the cases arises the creditor is the holder of any one of the kinds of securities or rights of preference enumerated in the subsection above-quoted such creditor is a "secured creditor" within the meaning of the Act. Coming, then, to the Quebec law, what is the position of the appellant? Under the Code, the builder, among others, has a privilege (i.e., "a right of being preferred to other creditors ") upon the additional value given to the debtor's immoveable, by the work done or the materials supplied (C.C. 1983 & 2013). This privilege accrues, however, only provided the builder registers his claim against the property within a specified delay, and the privilege lapses unless action is instituted against the owner within another specified delay (C.C. 2013f). Both of these requirements have been complied with by the appellant. There should, therefore, be no hesitation in answering the first question in the affrmative.

(2) The second question involves greater difficulty, and must be decided by the interpretation of the Act itself, without further reference to the provincial law, save to repeat that the purpose of the action taken by appellant, and "stayed" by theorder appealed from, was to realize upon the appellant's security in the manner provided by the law of Quebec.

The sixth section is what may be called the main enacting section of the Bankruptcy Act, and the effect of the first subsection thereof is automatically to arrest all proceedings in recovery by ordinary creditors, unless special leave be granted to institute or continue such proceedings; but, in language which could scarcely be plainer, it is provided that the secured creditor shall remain free to realize or otherwise deal with his security. This section, however, deals only with the situation after the receiving order is made. Section seven provides for the interim period between the presentation of a bankruptcy petition and the issue of the order, within which period an order from the judge is necessary if proceedings in recovery are to be stayed. This section in its second part again protects the interests of the secured creditor.

But in the case in question there had been no receiving order and no petition in bankruptcy, so that neither of the foregoing sections applies. The Riordon Co., realizing its situation, had, before any of its creditors had taken steps, brought itself under section 13, by calling the meeting above referred to. This latter section in its original form made no provision for the stay of proceedings in recovery, but the omission was rectified in 1921, by the addition of sec. 13A. This new section, like section seven, contains two subsections, the second of which, providing for the situation after an order approving a proposal of extension" has been made, is the one applicable to the present case. Now, this sub-section specifically safeguards the rights of the secured creditors, withdrawing them from its general operation.

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It is further pointed out that an extension can be obtained under the Act without the participation, and even against the will of the secured creditors, and that, from the equitable point of view it is unreasonable that unsecured creditors should be able indefinitely to delay matters in the hope of ameliorating their position at the expense of the secured creditors, whose affairs in the meantime may well suffer serious prejudice if they are unable to realize upon the security which was intended to make their situation safe.

Mention is made of the judgments referred to at the beginning of this note, and with reference to the Damphousse decision it is stated that when that judgment was rendered sec. 13A had not been enacted, and, that, though the new section does not materially alter the general question, the court feels obliged to decide in another sense.

A word might, perhaps, be added to the foregoing reasoning. A comparison of the first subsection of sec. 7 and of that of sec. 13A discloses a similarity and common features which distinguish both from the first subsection of sec. 6. Both the former contemplate a situation wherein the court has not as yet intervened; both indicate that an order from the court is necessary to stay proceedings in recovery; and neither contains any proviso as to the rights of secured creditors. Then both sec. 7 and sec. 13A in the second subsecs., which apply after the court has issued an order as to the affairs in general of the debtor, reiterate the safeguard for the secured creditors, as contained in sec. 6. Might it not, therefore, be reasonable to conclude that the true effect of the Act should be that during the period (which would normally be short) between the first step taken, either by a creditor or by the debtor himself and the date of the court's general order (whether it be a receiving order or an order approving a proposal of composition, extension or scheme of arrangement), the judge in bankruptcy may stay any proceedings in recovery, whether the plaintiff be a secured. creditor or not; but that once such a general order has been made, the secured creditor will be at liberty to proceed if he sees fit to do so?

Connecting and Terminal Carriers-Direct Liability Towards Consignee-Burden of Proof.

The question of the liability of the connecting and the terminal carrier towards the consignee, and of the burden of proof as regards loss occurring or damage caused to goods in transit has come before the Quebec Court of Appeal several times recently, and in two cases reported in the last volume (33 K.B.) the doctrine generally admitted in France has been applied.

Supposing there is no special clause in the contract otherwise regulating the relationship or liability, the situation under the Quebec law and that of France is that the consignor or the consignee can sue directly any connecting or terminal carrier

just as he could sue the initial carrier. But the liability of the former may not be the same as that of the latter. As a general principle it may be said that the first carrier is liable for the subsequent carriers, but not vice versa. The consignee could, therefore, in principle, in all cases, sue the initial carrier, proving only delivery to him of the goods and their non-arrival, or their arrival in a damaged or incomplete condition. This would establish a prima facie liability from which the defendant could exonerate himself only on disproving plaintiff's allegations, or on establishing a legal or a valid conventional exemption. But suit against the initial carrier is not always possible for the consignee, whose most practical recourse is usually against the terminal carrier. In case of non-arrival of the goods, his recourse against the latter is clear, if he can establish delivery to him. In case of damage or partial loss, however, the question of the burden of proof arises. Must the consignee establish receipt by the terminal carrier in good condition and completeness as to contents? On the one hand it may be said that neither the consignor nor the consignee can follow the goods through all the stages of transportation, nor even be represented by agents thereat; on the other hand, the connecting carriers are not entitled to hold up the transportation in order to make a minute inspection of the contents of packages, cases, etc. French doctrine, in such circumstances, distinguishes two classes of cases, wherein the burden of proof will lie differently: I. Where on arrival at the destination the goods are obviously damaged, or obviously incomplete, the burden of proof that the loss or damage occurred before the goods came under his control will be on the terminal carrier, that is, delivery in good order and completeness to him will be presumed in the absence of proof to the contrary. This is reasonable, because either one of two suppositions must be true. On receipt by the terminal carrier, the goods were either (a) obviously damaged or incomplete, in which case he should have taken steps to protect himself; or (b) not obviously damaged or incomplete, in which case the damage or loss must have occurred while the goods were under his control.

II. When the damage or loss on arrival is such that it can be seen only after the packages or cases, etc., are opened, the burden of proof of showing that the loss or damage occurred while the terminal carrier was responsible therefor will be on the plaintiff..

This doctrine seems very satisfactory from the point of view both of equity and of logic. It was applied in New York Central v. Perrin, et al. (33 K.B. 281), wherein the terminal carrier was absolved from liability for shortage in a case of gloves which arrived in apparent good order in Montreal: and in C.P.R. v. Boucher (33 K.B. 489), where the terminal carrier was exonerated when a number of kegs in a shipment of brandy, which arrived apparently intact, were upon examination found to contain water instead of the precious liquor. Both of these are to be distinguished from Boston and Maine R. R. v. Ratzkowski (30 K.B. 445), in which case the damage to the goods was apparent on arrival, the carrier being held liable because he did not discharge the burden of proof laid upon him by the circumstances.

Criminal Law-Reserved Case-Manner of Stating Case-Theft-Cr. Code, secs. 1014 et seq. and 355.

It is a matter of common knowledge that much that is unsatisfactory in the administration of justice, especially in criminal matters, arises from the failure of court officials to conform to the prescribed procedure, either from lack of knowledge or otherwise. Would it not be possible to make the passing of an appropriate examination a condition precedent (save where the applicant is a member of the Bar) to the appointment to any non-judicial post, the duties of which require for their proper performance a knowledge of procedure or of substantive law? Such a system would, without doubt, greatly reduce the number of cases brought before the higher tribunals on technical points. Those occupying judicial positions cannot be expected to supervise every detail in the procedure before the criminal courts, which even yet is somewhat complicated; and not infrequently convictions and sentences, in themselves properly arrived at and pronounced, are invalidated and set aside by reason of some quite minor irregularity for which the judge cannot reasonably be held responsible. Sometimes, however, even the magistrate fails to comply with the formal requirements of the law, with the result that a case which should have been disposed of in a few days or, at most, a few weeks, drags on for a matter of months.

An edifying example of this regrettable state of affairs is afforded by the case of The King v. Marion, in which a judg

C.B.R.-VOL. I.-13

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