Case ID: dall_1/html/0354-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Ross versus Clarke.
    FOREIGN attachment.—Clarke, the Defendant in this case, had obtained judgment upon scire facias against Ross, the Plaintiff, as special bail of one Munro; and a slay of proceedings was entered untill the ensuing term, when Ross was to pay the money recovered into Court, if before that time the original debtor had not fatished the debt. The stay being elapsed, Ross paid the money, but, upon an apprehension that payment might have been made by Munro, though no account were received of it, he immediately issued this foreign attachment against Clarke, and laid it in the hands of the Prothonotary.
    
    
      On a rule to shew cause why the writ should not be quashed, Moylan contended, that foreign attachments might be laid in any hands whatsoever; that in England they issued out of an interior Court, and, therefore, could not call money from a superior jurisdiction; but that this reason, which governed all the adverse cases determined there, did not apply under the law or practice of Pennsylvania.
    
    Cox, in support of the rule, observed, that there are many instances where attachments would not lie, besides the one mentioned by his opponent. A debt due by recovery on record, cannot be attached; nor goods levied in execution by fieri facias. Com. Dig. 424. nor property of a sovereign state: Nathan versus Virginia ant.77. in not. But, he contended, that the mischief would be intolerable, if the effects of one suit could be thus drawn into perpetual litigation by another.
   By the Court.

The money is to be considered in the same state, as if it had been paid into the hands of the Sheriff. If a proceeding of this kind were allowed, there could be no end to suits. We are unanimously of opinion, that the foreign attachment has issued irregularly and ought to be quashed.

The rule made absolute.