Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/74/139.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 07:03:00+00:00

Document:
With these provisions in force, one Bates, who lived in Troy, New York, and owned certain iron safes in Chicago, Illinois, in order to secure an existing debt to Van Buskirk and others, executed and delivered ( in the State of New York), to them, on the 3d of November, 1857, a chattel mortgage on the safes. Two days after this, one Green, also a creditor of Bates, sued out of the proper court of Illinois a writ of attachment, caused it to be levied on these safes, got [74 U.S. 139, 141] judgment in the attachment suit, and had the safes sold in satisfaction of his debt. At the time of the levy of this attachment the mortgage had not been recorded in Illinois; nor had possession of the property been delivered under it; nor had the attaching creditor notice of its existence. Green, Van Buskirk, and Bates were citizens of New York.
It was admitted on the record that the proceedings in attachment were regular and in conformity with the laws of Illinois; that the cases of Martin v. Dryden and Burnell v. Robertson, reported in the Illinois reports,1 rightly explained those laws; that Bates was the owner of the safes on the 3d of November, 1857, and that Green was a bon a fide creditor of Bates. After the levy of the attachment Green received notice of the mortgage, and the claim under it, and Van Buskirk and the others, mortgagees, were informed of the attachment; but they did not make themselves parties to it and contest the right of Green to levy on the safes, which they were auhorized by the laws of Illinois to do.
By statutes of Illinois,2 any creditor can sue out a writ of attachment against a non-resident debtor. Under this writ the officer takes possession of the debtor's property. If the debtor cannot be served with process, he receives notice by publication, and if he does not appear, the creditor, on proving his case, has judgment by default, and execution is issued to sell the property attached. These statutes further enact,3 that mortgages of personal property are void as against third persons, unless acknowledged and recorded, and unless the property be delivered to and remain with the mortgagee.
In this state of the law in Illinois, Van Buskirk sued Green in one of the inferior courts of New York, for taking and converting the safes, sold as already mentioned under the attachment. Green pleaded in bar the attachment proceedings in Illinois. But the court held that the law of New York was to govern the case, not the law of Illinois, though the property was situated there, and that by the law [74 U.S. 139, 142] of New York the title to the property passed on the execution and delivery of the mortgage, and took precedence of the subsequent attachment in Illinois. This judgment being affirmed in the highest court of the State of New York, Green, assuming that the 'faith and credit' which the judicial proceedings in courts of Illinois had by law and usage in that State, were denied to them by the decision just mentioned, took a writ of error to this court, conceiving the case of fall within the 25th section of the Judiciary Act, which gives a writ in cases where, in the highest State court, a clause of the Constitution of the United States is drawn in question, and the decision is against the right, title, or privilege specially set up.
The defence in the New York courts was, that the safes [74 U.S. 139, 143] were Bates's, and were seized and sold as his, under execution in an attachment suit against him. Thus, the leading question was the ownership at the time of the attachment. If the safes were then Bates's, the attachment took effect upon his title; but if they had already passed to his vendees, then the attachment process could not reach them. This leading question of previous ownership, and as to the effect of the sale, as against creditors, necessarily assumed that the Illinois suit and process had their full effect of establishing Green in the legal position of attaching creditor of Bates, and entitled, as such, to contest such sale. Whatever interest Bates had, that, it was admitted, was bound. The question was, whether he had any interest, a matter which did not depend on the record from Illinois, but on the fact whether the assignment was to be governed by the domicile of the owners or by the locus rei sitae. Full faith and credit was thus given to the record.
Messrs. A. J. Parker and Lyman Trumbull, contra, contended, that the position of the other side, now taken, was just as good an argument against the jurisdiction of the court in the case, as it was on the question of merits. In [74 U.S. 139, 144] effect it was the argument made on the motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction. But this court had refused to dismiss, and so decided that the argument was unsound. The question now before the court had been really disposed of in the former case. And it was disposed of rightly.
In conclusion, we refer the court to the case of Guillander v. Howell, 9 decided by the Court of Appeals of the State of New York since the decision of this case. In that case the court seems to abandon the position it held in deciding the present case.
In Guillander v. Howell, the attaching creditor was a citizen [74 U.S. 139, 145] of the State in which he applied for the benefit of the attachment laws; while here he was a citizen of another State. This is a material point of distinction; for here the parties, as citizens of New York, were bound by its laws.
That the controversy in this case was substantially ended when this court refused10 to dismiss the writ of error for want of jurisdiction, is quite manifest by the effort which the learned counsel for the defendants in error now make, to escape the force of that decision.
The question raised on the motion to dismiss was, whether the Supreme Court of New York, in this case, had decided against a right which Green claimed under the Constitution, and an act of Congress. If it had, then this court had jurisdiction to entertain the writ of error, otherwise not.
It was insisted on the one said, and denied on the other, that the faith and credit which the judicial proceedings in the courts of the State of Illinois had by law and usage in that State, were denied to them by the Supreme Court of New York, in the decision which was rendered.
Whether this was so or not, could only be properly considered when the case came to be heard on its merits; but this court, in denial of the motion to dismiss, held that the Supreme Court of New York necessarily decided what effect the attachment proceedings in Illinois had by the law and usage in that State; and as it decided against the effect which Green claimed for them, this court had jurisdiction, under the clause of the Constitution which declares 'that full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings in every other State,' and the act of Congress of 1790, which gives to those proceedings the same faith and credit in other States, that they have in the State in which they were rendered.
This decision, supported as it was by reason and authority, left for consideration, on the hearing of the case, the inquiry, [74 U.S. 139, 146] whether the Supreme Court of New York did give to the attachment proceedings in Illinois, the same effect they would have received in the courts of that State.
By the statutes of Illinois, any creditor can sue out a writ of attachment against a non-resident debtor, under which the officer is required to seize and take possession of the debtor's property, and if the debtor cannot be served with process, he is notified by publication, and if he does not appear, the creditor, on making proper proof, is entitled to a judgment by default for his claim, and a special execution is issued to sell the property attached. The judgment is not a lien upon any other property than that attached; nor can any other be taken in execution to satisfy it. These statutes further provide, that mortgages on personal property have no validity against the rights and interests of third persons, without being acknowledged and recorded, unless the property be delivered to and remain with the mortgagee.
The policy of the law in Illinois will not permit the owner of personal property to sell it and still continue in possession of it. If between the parties, without delivery, the sale is valid, it has no effect on third persons who, in good faith, get a lien on it; for an attaching creditor stands in the light of a purchaser, and as such will be protected. 12 But it is unnecessary to cite any other judicial decisions of that State but the cases of Martin v. Dryden,13 and Burnell v. Robertson,14 which are admitted in the record to be a true exposition of the laws of Illinois on the subject, to establish that there the [74 U.S. 139, 147] safes were subject to the process of attachment, and that the proceedings in attachment took precedence of the prior unrecorded mortgage from Bates.
If Green, at the date of the levy of his attachment, did not know of this mortgage, and subsequently perfected his attachment by judgment, execution, and sale, the attachment held the property, although at the date of the levy of the execution he did know of it. The lien he acquired, as a bon a fide creditor, when he levied his attachment without notice of the mortgage, he had the right to perfect and secure to himself, notwithstanding the fact that the mortgage existed, was known to him, before the judicial proceedings were completed. This doctrine has received the sanction of the highest court in Illinois through a long series of decisions, and may well be considered the settled policy of the State on the subject of the transfer of personal property. If so, the effect which the courts there would give to these proceedings in attachment, is too plain for controversy. It is clear, if Van Buskirk had selected Illinois, instead of New York, to test the liability of these safes to seizure and condemnation, on the same evidence and pleadings, their seizure and condemnation would have been justified.
It is true, the court in Illinois did not undertake to settle in the attachment suit the title to the property, for that question was not involved in it, but when the true state of the property was shown by other evidence, as was done in this suit, then it was obvious that by the laws of Illinois it could be seized in attachment as Bates's property.
In order to give due force and effect to a judicial proceeding, it is often necessary to show by evidence, outside of the record, the predicament of the property on which it operated. This was done in this case, and determined the effect the attachment proceedings in Illinois produced on the safes, which effect was denied to them by the Supreme Court of New York.
It should be borne in mind in the discussion of this case, that the record in the attachment suit was not used as the foundation of an action, but for purposes of defence. Of course Green could not sue Bates on it, because the court had no jurisdiction of his person; nor could it operate on any other property belonging to Bates than that which was attached. But, as by the law of Illinois, Bates was the owner of the iron safes when the writ of attachment was levied, and as Green could and did lawfully attach them to satisfy his debt in a court which had jurisdiction to render the judgment, and as the safes were lawfully sold to satisfy that judgment, it follows that when thus sold the right of property in them was changed, and the title to them became vested in the purchasers at the sale. And as the effect of the levy, judgment and sale is to protect Green if sued in the courts of Illinois, and these proceedings are produced for his own justification, it ought to require no argument to show that when sued in the court of another State for the same transaction, and he justifies in the same manner, that he is also protected. Any other rule would destroy all safety in derivative titles, and deny to a State the power to regulate the transfer of personal property within its limits and to subject such property to legal proceedings.
Attachment laws, to use the words of Chancellor Kent, 'are legal modes of acquiring title to property by operation of law.' They exist in every State for the furtherance of [74 U.S. 139, 149] justice, with more or less of liberality to creditors. And if the title acquired under the attachment laws of a State, and which is valid there, is not to be held valid in every other State, it were better that those laws were abolished, for they would prove to be but a snare and a delusion to the creditor.
It would seem to be unnecessary to continue this investigation further, but our great respect for the learned court [74 U.S. 139, 150] that pronounced the judgment in this case, induces us to notice the ground on which they rested their decision. It is, that the law of the State of New York is to govern this transaction, and not the law of the State of Illinois where the property was situated; and as, by the law of New York, Bates had no property in the safes at the date of the levy of the writ of attachment, therefore none could be acquired by the attachment. The theory of the case is, that the voluntary transfer of personal property is to be governed everywhere by the law of the owner's domicile, and this theory proceeds on the fiction of law that the domicile of the owner draws to it the personal estate which he owns wherever it may happen to be located. But this fiction is by no means of universal application, and as Judge Story says, 'yields whenever it is necessary for the purposes of justice that the actual situs of the thing should be examined.' It has yielded in New York on the power of the State to tax the personal property of one of her citizens, situated in a sister State,20 and always yields to 'laws for attaching the estate of non-residents, because such laws necessarily assume that property has a situs entirely distinct from the owner's domicile.' If New York cannot compel the personal property of Bates (one of her citizens) in Chicago to contribute to the expenses of her government, and if Bates had the legal right to own such property there, and was protected in its ownership by the laws of the State; and as the power to protect implies the right to regulate, it would seem to follow that the dominion of Illinois over the property was complete, and her right perfect to regulate its transfer and subject it to process and execution in her own way and by her own laws.
We do not propose to discuss the question how far the transfer of personal property lawful in the owner's domicile will be respected in the courts of the country where the property is located and a different rule of transfer prevails. [74 U.S. 139, 151] It is a vexed question, on which learned courts have differed; but after all there is no absolute right to have such transfer respected, and it is only on a principle of comity that it is ever allowed. And this principle of comity always yields when the laws and policy of the State where the property is located has prescribed a different rule of transfer with that of the State where the owner lives.
JUDGMENT FOR THE PLAINTIFF IN ERROR.
[ Footnote 1 ] 1 Gilman, 187; 5 Id. 282.
[ Footnote 2 ] Revised Statutes of 1845, p. 630, seq.
[ Footnote 4 ] Green v. Van Buskirk, 5 Wallace, 310.
[ Footnote 5 ] Sill v. Worswick, 1 H. Blackston, 690; 2 Kent, 376; Parsons v. Lyman, 20 New York, 103; Burlock v. Taylor, 16 Pickering, 335; Van Buskirk v. Hartford Ins. Co., 14 Connecticut, 583; Caskie v. Webster, 2 Wallace, Jr., 131.
[ Footnote 6 ] Martin v. Dryden, 1 Gilman, 212.
[ Footnote 7 ] Buck v. Colbath, 3 Wallace, 346.
[ Footnote 8 ] Christmas v. Russell, 5 Id. 290.
[ Footnote 9 ] 35 New York, 657.
[ Footnote 10 ] 5 Wallace, 312.
[ Footnote 11 ] Henderson v. Morgan, 26 Illinois, 431; Porter v. Dement, 35 Id. 479.
[ Footnote 12 ] Thornton v. Davenport, 1 Scammon, 296; Strawn v. Jones, 16 Illinois, 117.
[ Footnote 13 ] 1 Gilman, 187.
[ Footnote 14 ] 5 Id. 282.
[ Footnote 15 ] Mills v. Duryee, 7 Cranch, 481.
[ Footnote 16 ] 5 Wallace, 290.
[ Footnote 17 ] 1 Sandford Ch. 146.
[ Footnote 18 ] Cochran v. Fitch, 1 Sandford Ch. 146; Kane v. Cook, 8 California, 449.
[ Footnote 19 ] 6 Pickering, 232.
[ Footnote 20 ] The People ex. rel. Hoyt v. The Commissioner of Taxes, 23 New York, 225.
[ Footnote 21 ] 35 New York Reports, 657.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.