Case ID: la_18/html/0057-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      Morphy, J.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

DORR ET AL., vs. KERSHAW ET AL.
    APÍEAL PROM THE COMMERCIAL COURT OP NEW ORLEANS.
    An attachment is dissolved on bonding the property attached. The plaintiff then looks to the bond and not to the property to satisfy his demand. If he fails the bond is discharged.
    So, a third party claiming the property attached and bonded cannot intervene in the suit between the plaintiff and defendant. He must look to the person in possession of the property. • ■ '
    This is an action against the drawee and acceptor of a hill of exchange, in which 69 bales of cotton are attached. The defendant bonded the property. M. Flourney intervened and claimed the cotton attached. The court refused,to hear evidence on or entertain the intervention,- because the defendant had bonded the cotton. There was judgment for the plaintiffs, and dismissing the petition of intervention. The intervenor appealed. .
    
      Peyton fy Smith, for the plaintiffs :
    1. The defendant has not appealed. The judgment against him has become final and cannot now be examined The appellant has no right to an appeal in this cause. The cotton which he claimed was, when he filed his intervention,,wholly beyond the control of the court. If the defendant had improperly bonded the intervenor’s property, this might be the basis of a distinct and separate action against the defendant for damages. But all claim on the cotton made in this action ceased with the taking of the bond. The plaintiffs could after-wards have no remédy but on the bond. See acts of 1839, page 162. The intervenor has sustained no damage by the judgment from which he appeals. Had he been allowed to prove the property belonged to him, what judgment could the court have rendered in this suit on such evidence ?
    2. The appearance of the defendant by his agent arid bonding the cotton, released the attachment, on it; Code of Practice, 259. The bond became a substitute for the cotton; The State vs. the Judge of the Commercial Court; 14 La. Rep., 592. The claim of ownership of the cotton filed after the bonding by the intervenor had none of the requisites of an in-Mention. He neither joined with the plaintiff nor with the defendant nor did he oppose both; Code of Practice, 389, and amendment of 1826. The defendant by his own act had deprived the plaintiff of his claim on the cotton and had substituted a claim on the bond. The answer of general denial to the petition in intervention could not change the issues between the plaintiff and defendant, or authorize the court to do a vain thing.
    An attachment is dissolved on perty attached, then loolcs totte the property to satisfy his demand. If he fails the bond is discharged.
    So, ñ third the property *at-edcanno? inter" vene in the suit plaintiff and de-mustloók to the session of Pthe property.
    
      M‘Caleb, for defendant.
    
      Chinn, for the intervenor and appellant,
    insisted that the intervention was improperly dismissed. 'The bond taken for the cotton was a judicial bond within the control of the court and represented the property attached.
   Morphy, J.

delivered the opinion of the court.

M. Fkrarney is appellant from a judgment dismissing his intervention in this suit, wherein 69 bales of cotton which he c^a™s as property, had been attached and bonded by de-fendarat under article 259 of the Code of Practice. It does not appear to us that the judge below erred. The attachment having been dissolved by the giving of a bond conditioned as ^aw requires, the cotton was no longer under the control 0f the court, and the intervenor’s claim should have been directed against the person in possession of his property; the condition of the bond entered into by defendant was not to hold the cotton subject to the order of the court, but to satisfy such ju^ment as ml*gbt be rendered against him in the suit pending. This personal obligation could not be discharged by the surrender of the property attached ; nor could plaintiffs, upon obtaining judgment, exercise any recourse upon it. The bond *s a substitute for the property; but only with regard to the attaching creditor, and for the sole purpose of" satisfying any judgment he might obtain ; as to third parties who set up a claim as owners to the property attached after it has been bonded, they must look to the property itself, not to the bond with which they have nothing to do. There is .no privity of contract between the intervenor and the obligors in the attachment bond. The only judgment which could be rendered on this intervention, would be for the restoration of the cotton.. Such a judgment would be nugatory because the court would be without the means of enforcing it. As to the bond, no One can avail himself of it except the plaintiff in the suit; if he fails to obtain a judgment, the bond is discharged.

The judgment of the Commercial Court is therefore affirm-' ed with costs. »