Case ID: walker_4/html/0181-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

SHAW VS. SHUPPEL.
    An attachment under the Act of March 17, 1869, P. Laws 8, will not lie for a debt not yet due.
    Error to Common Pleas of York County. No. 413, January Term, 1884.
    This case was an attachment under the Act of March 17th, 1869, P. Laws 8. In this case Shuppel bought of Shaw tobacco which was to be stowed in Everhard’s warehouse until September, 1882, and then paid for. Shuppel assorted it and ■claimed it was not the quality agreed upon, and notified him (Shaw) to take it back. On August 22, 1880, Shaw made an affidavit that Shuppel was about to remove his property out ■of the county with intent to defraud his creditors, and upon filing a bond an attachment was issued. On August 29, 1882, Shuppel filed a bond and the attachment ivas dissolved. Decíaration was filed September 9, 1882, and plea of non-assumpsit on Nov. 25, 1882. Upon the trial of the case the Court held that an attachment under the Act of 1869 could not lie for a. 'debt not yet due, and therefore the action was improperly brought; and directed a verdict for defendant.
    Shaw then took this writ of error.
    
      J. Blackford and W. F. Stewart, Esqs., for plaintiff in error,
    argued that the Act of March 17, 1869, P. Laws 8, does not require the debt to be due. Second, the objection that it was not due should have been made upon the motion to dissolve: Poor vs. Colburn, 57 Pa. 415; Railroad Co. vs Wilcox, 48 Pa. 161; Lowenstine vs. Sheetz, 7 Philada. 361. Shuppel’s notice gave Shaw a right to sue at once: Mountjoy vs. Metzger, 9 Phila. 10; Rinehart vs. Olwine, 5 W. & S. 157; Hochster vs. De La Tour, 75 E. C. L. R. 678.
    
      W. C. Chapman, Esq., contra,
    
    argued that an attachment will not issue for a debt not yet due: McCullough vs. Grishobber, 4 W. & S. 201; Pratt vs. Styer, 1 Brown 282; Coaks vs. White, 11 W. N. C.271. Shaw’s suit is for money due on the contract, not for damages for non-performance, and hence this claim was not due when the writ was issued.
   The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Common. Pleas on June 2nd, 1884, in the following opinion:

Per Curiam.

We are clearly of opinion that the Act of March 17th, 1869, P. Laws 8, does not authorize the attachment to issue on a claim not due. The purpose of the attachment is to secure a lien to await the recovery of a judgment. If the debt is not due when the attachment issues a judgment cannot be recovered. The proceeding is unlike one under the Domestic Attachment Laws J Lieberman vs. Hoffman, 2 Pennypacker 211.

Judgment Affirmed.