Case ID: ri_23/html/0142-01.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

Hannah M. Remington vs. Charles E. Hazard.
    PROVIDENCE
    JUNE 28, 1901.
    Present: Stiness, C. J., Tillinghast and Rogers, JJ.
    (1) Abuse of Process. Garnishment,
    An attempt by successive attachments to secure a sufficient amount in the hands of a garnishee to pay a claim in full, effected by serving the process upon the garnishee but not upon the defendant, and then by a fresh suit attaching the fund thus accumulated, is such an abuse of process that no valid attachment can be allowed under it.
    Assumpsit on book-account. Heard on exceptions of defendant to ruling of a District Court charging a garnishee.
    Exceptions sustained.
   Per Curiam.

A writ was issued by the plaintiff June 23, 1900, returnable July 2, 1900, and by it the defendant’s wages were attached. The writ Was not served upon the defendant, and another writ was issued June 28, 1900, returnable July 12, 1900, and again the defendant’s wages were attached. This writ was not served on the defendant, and a third writ was issued July 12, returnable July 26, 1900, with a third attachment, and this writ was entered in court.. The' case comes before us on exceptions to the ruling of the District Court charging the garnishee.

H. C. Curtis, for plaintiff.

Eugene H. Lincoln, for defendant.

The procedure in this case was such an obvious abuse of the process of the court that no valid attachment can be allowed under it. Such an attempt to accumulate attachments was strongly condemned in McNally v. Wilkinson, 20 R. I. 315, and this case does not differ from that one.

Exceptions sustained, and case remitted to the District Court of the Sixth Judicial District with directions to discharge the garnishee.