Case ID: grant_1/html/0457-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Lewis, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Jones versus The New York and Erie Railroad Company.
    1. A foreign corporation located in Pennsylvania, may be made garnishee in execution attachment.
    2. A debt in suit, in another court, may be attached.
    3. A debt established by judgment may be attached, even though it be by the judgment of the court of another ¡átate.
    Error to the Court of Common Pleas of Susquehanna county.
    
   The facts of the case sufficiently appear in the opinion of the court, delivered by

Lewis, C. J.

— This is an attachment execution under the Act of 16th June, 1836, in which the railroad corporation is made a garnishee. The plaintiffs have a judgment against Cyprian Inman, which they recovered in the Common Pleas of Susquehanna county.

Inman had a judgment against the railroad company, which he recovered in the Supreme Court of New York.

If neither the property nor the person of Inman was within the jurisdiction of this State, the courts of New York would not be bound to give to our judgment an extraterritorial operation.

But the plaintiffs have regular judgment against Inman. The record of this judgment is not before us; we are bound to presume that it was recovered on due service of process, according to law. If so, the jurisdiction for all purposes of execution is conclusively established by the judgment. Inman, therefore, will have no right to raise objections in New York to the deduction from his judgment there against the railroad company, of the amount of the plaintiff’s judgment against him here, if the railroad corporation should be legally compelled to pay it; and that corporation has no right to complain of this proceeding.

The Act of 1836 expressly extended this process to corporations as well as to individuals.

Although the proceedings upon an attachment execution are in the nature of an execution as against the principal debtor, they are essentially in the nature of a suit at law as against the garnishee.

He may appear, plead, and have a trial by jury, and writ of error, as in other actions at law. But can the railroad corporation be made a party to a suit in this State?

That corporation accepted of the privilege of extending its railroad through Susquehanna county, coupled with a provision in the act granting this privilege, by which the company was required “ to keep at least one manager, toll-gatherer, or other officer, a resident in the county of Susquehanna,” on whom service of process “in all suits or actions which maybe brought against said company,” is declared to be “ as good and available in court as if made on the president thereof.”

This act was passed on the 16th February, 1841, P. L. 29. The true intent of it was to bring the railroad company within the jurisdiction of this State, for the purpose of compelling it to answer in all suits or actions at law which might be brought against it. The present action is within the meaning of the act.

The fact that the debt due by the railroad company to Inman has been established by judgment, presents no obstacle to this proceeding.

In England, where foreign attachment was confined to the inferior courts by the custom, the Superior courts, in the plenitude of their authority, would not permit subjects defending before them, to be affected by the process of the inferior tribunals.

But here the same cause does not operate. The courts proceeding by attachment are of equal force with the proceeding, according to the course of the common law, and therefore a debt in suit in another court maybe attached. M‘Carty v. Emlen, 2 Dal. 277; Crable v. Jones, 1 Miles’ Rep. 130; Sweeney v. Allen, 1 Barr, 380.

We see no reason why a debt established by judgment may not be attached.

If the debtor in the judgment should thus be compelled to pay any part of it to satisfy a creditor of the plaintiff therein, the courts of New York have ample power to see that the amount so recovered be allowed as a payment of the judgment pro tanto.

The courts of this State would certainly give full effect to such a judgment against a garnishee, and, under the constitution and laws of the Union, it would, without doubt, be quite as effective in New York.

The court fe|l into error in giving judgment for the defendant below, on the demurrer to the evidence.

Judgment reversed, and judgment entered here for the plaintiff in error, and a writ of injury of damages awarded.