Cases and Materials on Creditors’ Rights

Abstract

This second edition of Professor Hanna's casebook on Creditors' Rights is in structure and content much like the first. Its chief contribution is not in its organization or in the way the cases are put together in particular sections, but in the amount, quality, and timeliness of the materials reprinted. The book is again built about two distinct sets of problems: (a) the remedies of individual creditors, and (b) the administration of debtors' estates by creditors' representatives. Yet to the first of these less than one-sixth of the total space of the book is devoted; and the author's major formal division of his materials merely marks off bankruptcy problems from non-bankruptcy problems. Part I, covering 479 pages, includes chapters on Enforcement of Judgments, Fraudulent Conveyances, General Assignments, Creditors' Agreements, and Receivership. Part II, covering 768 pages, presents six chapters on Bankruptcy: Introduction (historical summary, annotated reprint of the 1S98 statute and its amendments, scope of bankruptcy jurisdiction, effect of national act upon state laws); Bankruptcy Administration; Acts of Bankruptcy; Assets of the Estate; Claims and Distribution; Extensions, Compositions and Reorganizations. There is little that is suggestive or "functional" in this seriatim presentation of remedies and methods of administration. For quick reference it may be convenient; but its adequacy for classroom instruction that purports to stress comparative study of remedies and methods is questionable. Some teachers will still prefer the more imaginative and intricate plans of Billig and Carey in their Cases on Administration of Insolvent Estates and of Sturges in his Cases on Administration of Debtors' Estates.