Former Congressman H.L. Godwin of Dunn, who was named as defendant in an involuntary proceeding in bankruptcy, brought in the United States District Court last October, has won the suit. The matter was heard before Judge Connor, who decided the case in favor of Mr. Godwin and taxed the instigators with the cost of the action.
The petition recited that Mr. Godwin had committed an act of bankruptcy when he permitted a judgement for $7,993.14 to be entered against him in Harnett county Superior court. The judgement was in favor of G. Ober Sons & co., and the petition set forth that said judgment constituted a lien against Mr. Godwin’s property and amounted to a preferred claim, in violation of the bankruptcy laws.
Mr. Godwin had never authorized any statement coming from him abut the matter until Wednesday. When seen by a Dispatch reporter on Wednesday, he stated that G. Ober Sons & Co. did secure a judgment against him upon an endorsement which he made on a note as an accommodation to his brother. That his brother executed the note as a principal for a fertilizer account of 1920 and secured the note with real estate paper. That his endorsement was given for the purpose of making the note a two-named paper, so it could be handled through a commercial bank.
He stated further that he had never received one penny for the endorsement, that it was purely a matter of accommodation, and that he did not owe the fertilizer company anything and never had. In the spring of 1923 the fertilizer company instituted suit against him in the Federal court in Raleigh and took judgment as an endorser over his protest and against his wishes.
Mr. Godwin thinks that the petition in bankruptcy was filed against him by some unfriendly attorney, who at the time knew that he had not committed acts of bankruptcy, but through an attempt to embarrass him. As soon as the petition was served on him he employed counsel and resisted successfully the same with the result that it was dismissed.
Since returning to Dunn, Mr. Godwin has regained the law practice which he gave up while representing the Sixth Congressional District in Congress. He has held on to his farms, which are now paying him well. It may be true that he owed a great deal of money, like many others, as a result of the deflation of 1920, but he says he is rapidly paying off his financial obligations and believes that he will pay every dollar he owes by the end of the present year. The success with which he has met in his law practice since he returned to Dunn from Washington has been nothing short of a surprise to his closest friends.
From the Dunn Dispatch, as reprinted on the front page of the Harnett County News, Lillington, N.C., Jan. 31, 1924
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