Case ID: ga_92/html/0409-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Anthanissen v. The Brunswick and South Atlantic Steam Towing and Wrecking Company. Anthanissen v. Dart et al.
    
    1. Under the act of Feb. 24,1877 (Pamphlet p. 106; Code Add. p. V),. the special bailiff of a county court is authorized to serve a summons of garnishment upon the sheriff'of the county, and when such bailiff had made an entry of service signing the entry as bailiff, although it was error to allow the return of service to be so amended as to make it appear that the officer was an “ acting constable” in making the service, the error was harmless, the facts showing that the service was good.
    2. The fact that the attorney at law of the plaintiff in attachment, signed the plaintiff’s name to the attachment bqnd when the latter had himself made the affidavit to obtain the attachment, does not necessarily require a dismissal of the attachment. If signing the plaintiff’s name by the attorney was not, under the circumstances, lawful, the bond was amendable.
    3. Where property expensive to keep was levied on by virtue of'an-attachment and sold by the sheriff under an order of the judge of the superior court according to the provisions of section 3648 of the code, the sheriff retaining the money subject to the order of the court, and thereafter both the attachment and the declaration based thereon were, on motion of the defendant, dismissed for fatal defects, the money in the sheriff’s hands was subject to garnishment by virtue of a second attachment at the instance of the plaintiff in the first. After the first attachment was dismissed, the money held by the sheriff belonged to the party from the sale-of whose property it was realized, he having ratified the sale by contesting the garnishment and moving to dismiss a second attachment upon which the garnishment was issued.
    April 10, 1893.
    By two Justices.
    Argued at the last term.
    Attachment. Before Judge Sweat. Glynn superior court. May term, 1892.
    Attachments were sued out against Anthanissen, master of the Norwegian bark Svalen, and the unknown, owners of that hark, for services rendered under contract for rescuing the bark from a position of peril on the bar of the Brunswick harbor. They were levied upon the bark with her cargo, and by subsequent proceedings before the judge of the superior court the vessel and cargo were sold separately, and the money derived from the-sale remained in the hands of the sheriff under order that it should stand in lieu of the vessel and cargo, and that the lien of the attachments should apply to the fund. The attaching creditors filed their declarations, setting up the foregoing facts, and asking for judgments against the fund. Because of defects appearing on the attachments and declarations they were dismissed. Afterwards the plaintiffs again sued out attachments against the same defendants. They were issued by Lambright, a justice of the peace, and made •returnable to the superior court, and were executed by serving summons of garnishment upon the sheriff. The return of service was signed by Driver as special bailiff of Glynn county court. Defendant’s motion in each case to dismiss the attachments was overruled, and he excepted. One ground of the motion was, that the attachment was directed to all and singular the sheriff's and constables of the State, and the levy was made by a person having no authority, by direction of the attachment or otherwise, to levy an attachment issued out of the justice’s court and returnable to the superior court. In reply to this ground, plaintiff' moved to amend the return of service by having Driver substitute for his •official signature the words, “ acting constable, justice’s court, 26th district G. M., Glynn county, Georgia.” In support of the motion to amend, Driver testified, that he had held the office of special bailiff of the county court for the past ten years, during which time he served and executed papers for Justice 'Lambright’s court, who delivered to him the summons of garnishment in question, which he served; and that he had never held the •office of constable of any justice’s court in Glynn county. The court allowed the return to be amended over defendant’s objection.
   Judgment affirmed, in both cases.

Another ground of the motion to dismiss was, that •one of the attachments was issued upon the affidavit of Dart, while the bond was signed, not by him, but with his name by his attorneys at law.

The remaining ground was, that the attachment was levied by process of garnishment upon the sheriff, from whose untraversed answer it appeared that he had in his possession $1,437.60 which came to his hands under an order of the court directing him to sell certain perishable property and hold the proceeds until further order, and that he held the same under such order as an officer, and not as an individual.

Crovatt & Whitfield and H. F. Dunwoody, for'plaintiff' in error.

Goodyear & Kay and Harris & Sparks, conin'.