Court Opinion

ID: 9808539
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 20:41:04.976245+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:14:41.839782
License: Public Domain

Davis, J.
dissenting: I cannot concur in the opinion that the defendants are entitled, before judgment rendered, to the benefit of chapter 27 of The Code. It is manifest, and I suppose will be conceded, that the relation of creditor and debtor cannot exist, if ever, till “ after judgment,” when, if the plaintiff shall recover damages, he will become “a judgment creditor,” and the defendants will become “judgment debtors.” I think chapter 27 of The Code can only apply when the relation of creditor and debtor exists by reason of a contract,, express or implied, or when the relation is established by a. “judgment rendered ” for the recovery of unliquidated damages, or in an action ex delicto. I think this plainly appears from the title of the original act (Acts of 1868-69, ch. 162) and the context of the act. This Court can only construe and declare the law; it cannot make law, and if section 2951 of The Code is to receive the broad construction given to it, without reference to the context or subject matter of the *498chapter, then it must apply to any action whatever, and the person under arrest, whether debtor, tort-feasor, or criminal, is entitled to discharge, for there is nothing but the context and subject matter that restricts the section to civil actions, and these plainly restrict it to insolvents against whom there is a “previously” rendered “judgment” or a “previously contracted debt.” No one would insist that a person under arrest in a criminal action would be entitled to the benefit of the act, and yet it seems to me this would be no more in conflict with the chapter relating to crimes than with the chapter on arrest and bail. I think it is inconsistent with either. When any unadjudicated claim, whether ex contractu or ex delicto, becomes a debt by the ascertainment and judgment of Court, the relation of creditor is established, and the debtor is entitled to the benefit of the act. Section 2952 provides only for the discharge upon compliance with chapter 27 of The Code, and, without enumerating the provisions to be complied with, there is not one of them that is not predicated upon a previously contracted debt or a previously-rai-dered judgment. Tf these defendants had been arrested at the suit of some creditor (the plaintiff cannot be a creditor until and unless he becomes such by judgment yet to be rendered), there can nowhere be found in the statute a provision by which they can notify the plaintiff in this action, or anyone else against whom they may have committed a tort, and obtain their discharge as against the claim for damages which the person wronged map' have till after judgment rendered.
It is well settled that the constitutional provision prohibiting imprisonment for debt except for fraud has no application to actions for torts. Long v. McLean, 88 N. C., 3, and cases cited; Kinney v. Laughenour, 97 N. C., 326, and cases cited. If a person arrested upon a charge of fraud is not ■entitled to discharge before trial, why should one arrested .for tort be so entitled? Before an order of arrest can be *499made,, the plaintiff is required to give bond, with security, for the protection of the defendant, and upon which he may have redress if it shall he found by the judgment that the plaintiff is not entitled to recover. Would the condition of this bond be cancelled by the discharge of the defendant before judgment? I think not; and if the defendant is held to bail for a tort, I think he can only be discharged, before judgment, by complying with section 298 of The Code, as a criminal punished by fine and costs can only be discharged after judgment for fine and costs
Section 2951 is the only section relied on for the discharge of the defendants. That section declares .what “ persons shall be entitled to the benefit of this chapter.” The first section of the chapter (section 2942 of The Code) provides that the insolvent may file his petition, etc., praying that his estate may be assigned for the benefit of all his creditors, and “ that his person may thereafter be exempt from arrest of imprisonment on account of any judgment previously rendered or of any debt previously contracted.” Section 2950 provides that the person of the insolvent, by the order of discharge, “shall forever thereafter be exempted from arrest or imprisonment on account of any judgment or debt due at the time of such order, or contracted for before that time, though • payable afterwards,” except the provision in section 2967 in favor of the putative father -of a bastard, or person committed for fine and costs in criminal actions. I am unable, after a careful examination of the statute which we are called upon to construe, to find a section or sentence that will extend its “ benefit ” to any insolvent person on account of any judgment not yet rendered or any debt not yet contracted. There is as yet no judgment rendered or debt existing against the defendants, and (give to section ‘2951 the broadest possible construction and the “ benefit ” prescribed in sections 2942 and 2950, does not extend to them) I think, unless we mean to extend the “ benefit” of a statute which, *500by its clear and unmistakable language, limits it to judgments previously rendered or debts previously contracted, to judgments fur damages hereafter to be rendered, the defendants do not come within its “benefit.” If the language of the statute limits the “ benefit,” I do not think we can extend it by construction so as to include the defendants, unless persons against whom damages are claimed and sought to be recovered for alleged torts, however grievous they may be, are to find, before judgment (and by the action of a debtor), a benefit that can nowhere be found in favor of an. insolvent debtor.
The defendants have been lawfully arrested, before judgment, in an action ex delicto for a tort, and the action is still pending, which distinguishes it from Houston v. Walsh, 79 N. C., 35, which, I think, by the clearest implication sustains the view presented by me. Being lawfully in arrest for a tort they cannot be discharged except as allowed in the chapter on arrest and bail, or until it is determined by judgment whether there are damages or not, when of course they will be discharged if there are none, or if there shall be judgment making them judgment debtors, when they will be entitled to the benefits of chapter 27 of The Code. In the present case the insolvent may have no assets to distribute, but if there were I know of no provision by which they could be distributed except among creditors existing at the time of the application for discharge, but cases may arise in which our decision may be of vast interest to persons who may be greatly damaged by tort-feasors, and having a decided conviction as to the construction to be placed upon the statute I have felt it my duty to enter my dissent to that placed upon it by the Court.
Avery, J.: I concur in the opinion of my brother Davis.
Per Curiam. Error.