Court Opinion

ID: 9833603
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 22:52:24.095913+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:04.914571
License: Public Domain

*1045On Motion for Rehearing.
In view of the rehearing argument of defendant in error, we deem it proper to make a further statement in regard to our holding in this case. It is urgently insisted in the argument that we erred in holding that' the 1921 amendment (R. S. art. 4087) worked a change in the garnishment statutes as regards the stipulation therein that the garnishee answer on or "before appeaz-ance day. It is insisted that this holding is in conflict with articles 4079 and 4080; the former requiring that the writ command “the garnishee to appear before the court out of which the same is issued, on the first day of the ensuing term thereof, to answer upon oath,” etc.; and the latter prescribing the form of the writ which commands the garnishee to appear “at the next term” of the court “then and there to answer upon oath,” etc.
We see no conflict between our holding and these provisions of articles 4079 and 4080. The latter merely fix the time limit in which the garnishee is given to answer. See in this connection, R. S. art. 2022. As pointed out in our original opinion, there was no other provision in the garnishment statutes prior to 1921 which prescribed the time in which answer might be filed. The cases which support the contention of defendant in error are all based upon the prior statutes. That amendment in requiring the garnishee to answer on or before .appearance day is clear and unambiguous, and, unless it be construed as meaningless, it authorizes exactly what it purports to authorize; that is, that the answer may be filed before as well as on appearance day. We can give it no other construction. We cannot presume that the Legislature inserted it without purpose, which alone, so far as we can see, was to authorize answer before appearance day as a full compliance with the garnishment statutes.
Defendant in error for the first time calls attention to the case of Challenge Co. v. Sartin (Tex. Civ. App.) 260 S. W. 313, by the Dallas court. The facts of this case arose after the 1921 amendment. It is to be noted, however, that the court did not advert to the amendment, and also that a construction of the amendment was in no sense material to a decision. The issue there was whether the status of a fund held by a receiver, as regards its being gamishable, was fixed as of the date of service of the writ. The court held that it was not. The answer in that case was filed after the order of distribution, and the court pointed out that this status was not changed between the date of the order and appearance day in the garnishment suit. Manifestly, the judgment in that case would have been the same under our construction of the 1921 amendment.
The only other opinion we have been able to find which might in any sense have bearing upon this question is that of the Ft. Worth Court of Civil Appeals in Oklahoma Petroleum Co. v. Nolan, 253 S. W. 650, in which writ of error was refused. Whether the facts in that case arose prior to the 1921 amendment is not disclosed, nor is the amendment referred to. Aside from this, it is to be noted that the answer only covered the time the writ was served and'did not deny the existence of indebtedness, etc., at the time the answer was filed. We do not deem the decision in either of these cases in con.flict with our holding.
The holding in Lamb-McAshan Co. v. Ellis (Tex. Com. App.) 270 S. W. 547, and other cases of like tenor, to the effect that the 1921 amendment required all garnishees, whether resident or nonresident, to answer, was followed in our original opinion. We also held that under the 1921 amendment, as under the prior law, a nonresident garnishee, by voluntarily answering, submitted to the court’s jurisdiction for the purpose of testing the sufficiency of his answer.
If this latter holding were extended so as to require the nonresident garnishee to take notice of an order striking out an answer that fully met the demands' of the statutes, the benefits of the requirement that a contest of the answer be tried in the county of his residence and upon notice would he materially impaired. The manifest purpose of the 1921 amendment was to require disclosure by the nonresident garnishee without the necessity of issuing a commission, but at the same time to preserve to him the benefits of a local trial in case of contest. In making this change in procedure, we can readily see the importance of permitting the answer to be filed before appearance day. It might require a nonresident garnishee to employ local counsel, or subject him to other expense or inconvenience, if he were required to answer only on that day.
We adhere to our original holding and overrule the motion.
Overruled.