Case ID: miss_72/html/0565-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Whitfield, J.,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Philadelphia Investment Co. v. George B. Bowling.
    Attachment. Removal of property from state. Money.
    
    A debtor g'oing- from this state, expecting to return, and leaving sufficient property accessible to creditors to pay his debts, may take money without subjecting himself to attachment, but, money being-, by g 3471, code 1892, subject to be taken under execution or attachment, one whose sole property in this state consists of money on deposit, by going' out of the state and taking with him the money, subjects himself to attachment, although he expects to return.
    From the circuit court of Lee county.
    Hon. Newnan Cayoe, Judge.
    Attachment by the.Philadelphia Investment Company against George B. Bowling". The sole determining question in this case is whether Bowling was subject to attachment under § 129, code 1892, on the ground that he had removed himself, or his property, out of the state. On the trial of his plea in abatement traversing the ground of attachment, he testified that, at the time the attachment was levied, he was getting ready to go to England, and had been gathering up his money on deposit in different places in Mississippi to prepare for that trip; that he had deposits in different banks in Mississippi, shortly before, aggregating $10,000; that he did go to England about thirty days after the attachment was sued out, going first to Tennessee on a business trip, expecting to return shortly, and that he took the $10,000 spoken of with him. It is unnecessary to notice other points presented by the record but not passed on by the court. There was a verdict and judgment for the defendant, and plaintiff, after a motion for a new trial overruled, appeals.
    
      J. W. Buchanan, J. L. Finley and Adams & Trimble, for appellant.
    If the money of Bowling had remained in the state, the banks could have been summoned as garnishees, and the money subjected to the attachment. Money has been often adjudicated to be property. 19 Am. & Eng. Ene. L., 286, 288. The deposits constituted debts due to Bowling, -and, in this sense, were personal property. Code 1892, §§1513, 1514; 2 Wall., 256. The statute authorizes an attachment whenever it is proven that defendant has removed, or is about to remove, his property from the state, and it applies whether he expects to carry it himself or not, and although he expects to come back.
    No counsel for appellee.
   Whitfield, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

One may, on going out of the state expecting to return, and leaving property accessible to creditors amply sufficient to pay his debts, take with him, for a business or pleasure trip, money without subjecting himself to attachment. But one whose sole property in this state consists of ten thousand dollars on deposit in various banks in this state, cannot remove himself and such ten thousand dollars out of this state without subjecting himself to attachment. Money is, by statute (Code 1892, § 3470), subject “to bé taken under execution or attachment,” and the attachment law as to removing one’s property out of the state must receive a sensible and practical construction. The peremptory instruction asked by appellant should have been given.

Reversed and remanded.