On June 7, 1933, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois its petition for reorganization under section 77 of the Bankruptcy Act. See 11 U.S.C. § 205 (see 11 U.S.C.A. § 205). At that time the railroad had to its credit the sum of $36,908.72 in a checking account with the Northwestern National Bank & Trust Company of Minneapolis. The bank was then the owner of First and Refunding Gold bonds issued by the railroad of the par value of $100,000, not yet in default in respect of principal or interest. On June 19, 1933, seven days after receiving a copy of an order approving the petition for reorganization, the bank set off the deposit against the bonds by appropriate entries upon its books of account. Trustees of the estate of the railroad were appointed by the court in accordance with the statute, though whether before the attempted set-off or thereafter the record does not tell us. They brought suit against the bank in the United States District Court for Minnesota, not the court of bankruptcy administration, to recover the amount of the deposit set off against the bonds. After answer by the bank and a trial of the issues, the court entered a decree upholding the validity of the set-off, with a correction not now material as to the amount of the deposit. 11 F.Supp. 929. The trustees appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. That court, after certifying the facts substantially as summarized above, requested our instructions upon the following questions (Judicial Code, § 239, 28 U.S.C. § 346, 28 U.S.C.A. § 346): 'Question 1. Does the right of set-off recognized by section 68(a) of the Bankruptcy Act apply to reorganization proceedings under section 77 of that act?
'Question 2. If the first question be answered in the affirmative, can a bank which owns the unmatured bonds of a railroad corporation set off a deposit account of the railroad with the bank against the bonds, upon the filing by the railroad of a petition for reorganization under section 77 of the Bankruptcy Act, alleging that the railroad is unable to meet its debts as they mature?
'Question 3. If the first and second questions be answered in the affirmative, may the United States District Court, for the District of Minnesota, in the suit by the trustees of the railroad's estate to recover the amount deducted from the account of t e railroad by the bank under the claimed right of set-off, recognize and establish as a proper set-off by the bank one which was not made until after the filing of the petition for reorganization and which has never been ordered, authroized, approved, or consented to by the court in which that petition was filed and approved?'
This court has had occasion recently to restate the rules announced in earlier decisions as to the mode of formulating questions coming here upon certificates. Triplett v. Lowell (Mantle Lamp Co. of America v. Aluminum Products Co.), 297 U.S. 638, 56 S.Ct. 645, 80 L.Ed. 949 (March 30, 1936). We will not answer abstract questions unrelated to the pending controversy, or questions unnecessarily general, or questions which admit of one answer in one set of circumstances and a different answer in another; the differentiating circumstances being imperfectly disclosed. White v. Johnson, 282 U.S. 367, 371, 51 S.Ct. 115, 117, 75 L.Ed. 388; United States v. Mayer, 235 U.S. 55, 66, 35 S.Ct. 16, 59 L.Ed. 129; United States v. Hall, 131 U.S. 50, 52, 9 S.Ct. 663, 33 L.Ed. 97; Webster v. Cooper, 10 How. 54, 55, 13 L.Ed. 325; Hallowell v. United States, 209 U.S. 101, 107, 28 S.Ct. 498, 52 L.Ed. 702; General Motors Corporation v. United States, 286 U.S. 49, 63, 52 S.Ct. 468, 76 L.Ed. 971, 82 A.L.R. 600. The questions now before us have been framed without adequate regard to these established rules of practice.