the svea court of appeal in the early modern period 278 binding bankruptcy composition.780 As I explain below, there is strong evidence suggesting that the resolution was directly linked to an insolvency case cited by Jägerskiöld as an example of the difference of opinion between the Town Court of Stockholm and the Svea Court of Appeal. Jägerskiöld has analyzed the debates of Svea Court of Appeal judges in voluntarycessio bonorumcases from the 1650s onwards. As to the possibility of giving the debtor a fresh start after insolvency, it must first be recalled that such cases were a relatively small proportion of insolvency cases during the seventeenth century. These were the cases where a debtor took the initiative by seeking the right tobeneficium cessionis bonorumby ceding all his assets to the creditors. Most insolvency cases were concerned with the insolvent estates of deceased persons.781 These cases are complicated, involving many important questions concerning married women’s property rights, inheritance law and the extent to which spouses could be deemed responsible for each other’s debts. These intricate legal questions were of central importance in seventeenth-century Sweden, and they have been researched in detail elsewhere.782 As far as insolvency law is concerned, an important case was the one between the creditors of the late Hans von Vörden and the heirs of his widow Karin Pedersdotter that the Svea Court of Appeal decided in 1655. In this case, the scope of the widow’s beneficiumwas restricted to freedom from imprisonment. Cessio bonorumdid not restrict liability. The decision of the court was opposed by Vice-President Gustaf Rosenhane (1619 – 1684), who presented a very longvotumarguing for a broader interpretation.783 Rosenhane also discussed many fundamental questions of insolvency, including the question of binding majority compositions, and used 780 In this respect, Jägerskiöld’s reading of the edict of 1675 is inaccurate: “In konungens resolution på städernas besvär stadgades nu, att kreditor kunde förbindas till eftergift genom sina medkreditorers ackord,” Jägerskiöld, Stig 1967b p. 320. 781 Herdin, K.W. 1926 p. 115. Möller, Sylvi 1954 pp. 272-276. 782 Ågren, Maria 2009 pp. 70-84; Trolle Önnerfors, Elsa 2010 pp. 266-280. 783 Hans von Vördens kreditorer/Karin Pedersdotters arfvingar, RA, SHA, A II a, Codex rationum 27, Nov. 1655, 61V-68V, with fols. 63R-68V taking up Rosenhane’s votum. See also Jägerskiöld 1967, pp. 315-318. Rights of Insolvent Debtors in the Case Law of Svea Court of Appeal
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=