Court Opinion

ID: 9418816
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:40:12.916859+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:11.202467
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Cardozo,
dissenting.
The federal court in Texas is under a duty, prescribed by statute (R.S. § 905; 28 U.S.C. § 687; American Surety Co. v. Baldwin, 287 U.S. 156, 166), to give full faith and credit to judicial proceedings in Illinois, including proceedings under writs of garnishment or attachment. Green v. Van Buskirk, 7 Wall. 139. This does not mean that the proceedings are to have any greater effect than they have by law or usage in the courts of Illinois. Robertson v. Pickrell, 109 U.S. 608, 610, 611; Ohio v. Chattanooga Boiler Co., 289 U.S. 439, 443. The duty is fulfilled if the force and efficacy are the same.
Garnishment in Illinois does not create a lien upon the debt or chose in action subjected to the writ. Bigelow v. Andress, 31 Ill. 322, 330, 332 (distinguishing Brashear v. West, 7 Pet. 608, which was based upon a different statute); Gregg v. Savage, 51 Ill. App. 281, 284, aff’d, 150 Ill. 161; 37 N.E. 312; McElwee v. Wilce, 80 Ill. App. 338, 342. In substance it is a monition whereby the defendant is apprised that he will be acting at his peril if he makes a voluntary payment to the original creditor, the peril consisting in this, that he may have to pay again. Bigelow v. Andress, supra; Gregg v. Savage, supra; McElwee v. Wilce, *207supra.1 The writ has no effect upon involuntary payments before the stage of judgment. Some other attaching creditor, suing the same defendant, may garnish the same debt in another jurisdiction. The Illinois plaintiff, though the first to have recourse to garnishment, will be postponed to the other plaintiff who is first with execution. Lancashire Ins. Co. v. Corbetts, 165 Ill. 592; 46 N.E. 631. Indeed, the primary creditor, i.e., the debtor of the attaching plaintiff, may bring suit against the garnishee in another jurisdiction, and collect the indebtedness if he wins the race to judgment. Becker v. Illinois Central R. Co., 250 Ill. 40; 95 N.E. 42.2 The garnishment suit is in personam against the debtor of a debtor (Harris v. Balk, 198 U.S. 215), and the res is not impounded till the compulsion of judgment and execution has caused it to be paid. Then, but not before, the garnishee will have protection against the hazard of conflicting claims. Cf. Harris v. Balk, supra; Louisville & N. R. Co. v. Deer, 200 U.S. 176; B. & O. R. Co. v. Hostetter, 240 U.S. 620.
What has been written does not go beyond the law as declared in Illinois. The fact is not ignored that there are other jurisdictions in which the process of gamish*208ment receives a different meaning. Sometimes the service of the writ is held to impose upon the debt a fixed and present lien which will have recognition and enforcement everywhere. See, e.g., Embree v. Hanna, 5 Johns. 100; Wallace v. McConnell, 13 Pet. 136; In re Ransford, 194 Fed. 658, 661; Chicago, R. I. & P. Ry. Co. v. Sturm, 174 U.S. 710. Sometimes the lien is spoken of as a quasi lien or an inchoate one. See e.g., Focke v. Blum, 82 Tex. 436, 441; 17 S.W. 770; North Star Boot Co. v. Ladd, 32 Minn. 381, 383; 20 N.W. 334; In re Ransford, supra. Cf. Becker v. Illinois Central R. Co., supra. In the conflict of laws the difference may be important between realities and metaphors, between the organism and the germ. Sometimes the Illinois rule is accepted, and there is said to be no lien, or one that does no more than restrain the garnishee from making voluntary payments. See e.g., Commercial State Bank v. Pierce,3 176 Ia. 722; 158 N.W. 481; McGarry v. Lewis Coal Co., 93 Mo. 237; 6 S.W. 81; Parker v. Farr, 2 Browne (Pa.) 331. Little is to be gained by dilating upon these and like decisions, for they are rooted in local laws or customs. Garnishment and attachment today are statutory remedies. They are what the state creating them declares that they shall be. It is of no moment that Illinois might have made their efficacy greater as long as her legislature and courts have preferred to make them less.
In that state of the law the garnishee would have been remiss if it had faffed to shape its course with prudent recognition of conflicting possibilities. Its indebtedness *209to Sanders had been subjected to garnishment by the Armour company in Illinois, but Sanders was threatening it with suit in Texas. If Sanders had a judgment there before Armour was in a position to issue execution in Illinois, the garnishment in all likelihood would count for nothing, yet there was a possibility even then of dispute and litigation. Plainly in the race for judgments and its aftermath, there was the risk of expense and embarrassment, if not of double payment.
The garnishee in this dilemma paid the amount of the indebtedness into the registry of the federal court in Texas and had the rival claimants interplead. 28 U.S.C., § 41 (26). The claimant Sanders was entitled to the money unless the Armour company had a lien, and the courts of Illinois had held there was no lien. True there had been a judgment against Sanders, though not against his codefendant, the insurer, but this judgment had been obtained by default after service by publication, not followed by an appearance. It was therefore ineffective as a judgment in personam, and in the absence of a lien did not operate in rem. Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714; New York Life Ins. Co. v. Dunlevy, 241 U.S. 518. The joinder of Sanders had no effect except to give him notice of the garnishment and an opportunity to come in, if he was so minded, and contest the plaintiff’s claim. Harris v. Balk, supra, p. 27. He declined the invitation and preferred to litigate at home. Whatever lien has been adjudged as the result of his default was contingent upon the consummation of proceedings to charge the garnishee, and ended when they lapsed, just as if the suit were discontinued. It did not rise to the rank of a general interest in property, adhering to the debt everywhere and qualifying the title in another jurisdiction. Probably no one would contend that by force of the judgment against Sanders a suit could have been maintained by Armour as quasi owner of the policies outside of Illinois. If that was so before *210the interpleader, it was even more plainly so thereafter. By the express terms of the decree the stakeholder was discharged when the fund was paid into the registry, 38 F. (2d) 212, with the result that there was no longer the possibility of pursuing the garnishee anywhere and thus perfecting the attachment. If some inchoate incumbrance .had existed until then, it was then obliterated forever. The fund was free and clear.
The federal court in Texas was thus driven to a choice between a claimant with a foreign attachment which by the law of its creation was of no extraterritorial validity till it had ripened into payment under the compulsion of a judgment, and a claimant whose title to the fund was undisputed unless the lien of the attachment was presently effective. It is not easy to see how there could be any choice but one.
The decree of the Court of Appeals should be reversed and that of the District Court affirmed.
The Chief Justice, Me. Justice Brandéis, and Mr. Justice Stone join in this dissent.

 “A garnishment is an attachment of the effects of the debtor in the hands of the garnishee; creating no lien upon anything, but holding the garnishee to a personal liability.” Gregg v. Savage, supra.

 The Illinois Supreme Court in that case did, it is true, refer to a garnishment in Missouri as creating an “ inchoate ” lien, but coupled the description with a ruling that the inchoate lien was not a charge upon a cause of action elsewhere against the same defendant.
“ By the service of the garnishee summons in Missouri, Miller [the plaintiff in.that action] acquired a contingent or inchoate lien upon the debt, and appellant could not thereafter make a voluntary payment to the appellee; but the right which Miller acquired was dependent upon subsequently acquiring judgment, and that was not accomplished until a judgment had been recovered in this state, where the debt was free from any right or claim that he had.” Becker v. Illinois Central R. Co., supra.

 “ The garnishment proceedings created no lien upon any property belonging to the original defendant, if any, in the hands of the garnishee. By the garnishment proceedings a personal claim was acquired against the garnishees to the extent of any money or property that might be in their hands at the time the garnishment was served, belonging to the judgment defendant.” Commercial State Bank v. Pierce, supra, at 732.