Case Name: Thompson v. Nixon
Court: New York Court of Chancery
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1841-02-02
Citations: 3 Edw. Ch. 457
Docket Number: 
Parties: Thompson v. Nixon.
Judges: 
Reporter: Edwards' Chancery Reports
Volume: 3
Pages: 457–458

Head Matter:
Thompson v. Nixon.
Feb. 2, 1841.
Feb. 9.
Debtor and creditor. Judgment creditor. Public officer. Salary. Fees.
Where a public officer earns his fees by the piece or job, as the work is done, it can be reached by a judgment creditor, even though the day of payment had not arrived when bill was filed. It is not so where a public officer (as a clerk) is not paid by items and is only allowed salary periodically.
Judgment creditor’s bill. The master, on a receiver’s reference, decided that the defendant should hand over a gold watch and that a certain sum of seventy-one dollars and twenty-one cents was his property. The defendant refused to deliver or pay over the seventy-one dollars and twenty-one cents.
It appeared that the defendant was a measurer in the custom house; and the rate of his compensation was ninety cents for every one hundred bushels of coal he measured, seventy-five cents for every one hundred bushels of salt and forty-five cents for every one hundred bushels of certain other commodities ; that the custom was for the measurers to send in monthly accounts and they were obliged to render duplicate accounts quarterly : and the amounts were not payable until all the accounts were in and audited. There was payable to the defendant the sum of seventy-one dollars and twenty-one cents at the end of the quarter which terminated on the last of September, one thousand eight hundred and forty. This he received, although the bill had been filed and injunction served prior to the pay day, but after the services had been rendered and the money was earned.

Opinion:
The Vice-Chancellor decided :
that as the money was earned at the time the bill was filed, it belonged to the defendant then, although it might not be the rule of the custom house to pay it until afterwards; and, consequently, that it was liable to be applied towards paying the judgment of the complainant. The court considered it different to the ordinary case of the salary of a custom-house officer, which really is not due, as well as not payable, until the quarter day has come, )
) This decision corresponds with the views of his honor, the Chancellor, in the case of Browning v. Be.ttis, decided about the same time.