Court Opinion

ID: 9649666
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:05:21.406377+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:13.566360
License: Public Domain

Bogdanski, J.
(dissenting). I cannot agree that the subsequent attachment of the plaintiff Atlas takes precedence over the prior attachment of the defendant Hurley. It is undisputed that both attachments were validly made in accordance with the *259provisions of the pertinent statutes. When a valid attachment is made, a lien on the property attached is created, which lien can be erased only by a subsequent dissolution of the attachment. Drake, Attachment (6th Ed.) §224. “An attachment of property on mesne process is a mode of obtaining security for the satisfaction of any judgment which the plaintiff may finally recover.” (Emphasis added.) Morgan v. New York National Bldg. & Loan Assn., 73 Conn. 151, 152, 46 A. 877; Campbell v. Klahr, 111 Conn. 225, 228, 149 A. 770. The reasoning and the result reached by the majority would seem to establish an exception to the general rules of attachment priorities for spouses who make attachments under § 46-14 on real property to secure a court award of alimony.
Nowhere in the provisions of the attachment statutes or the case law can such a distinction be found. General Statutes § 46-14 expressly provides that a divorce action may be brought to the Superior Court, “and whenever alimony is claimed, attachments to secure the same may be made by direction in the writ.” (Emphasis added.) In this ease the defendant made a specific claim for alimony, support for minor children, and a conveyance to her of her husband’s “interest in the real estate located at 88 Tuckahoe Drive, Shelton.” Section 46-21 of the General Statutes provides that the Superior Court may assign to any woman divorced by that court a part of the estate of her husband and, in addition thereto or in lieu thereof, may order alimony to be paid from the husband’s income. In the divorce judgment rendered, the court ordered the defendant husband to pay $60.00 weekly for the support of two minor children and one dollar per year alimony. The court further ordered a transfer to the plain*260tiff wife of the husband’s interest in realty known as 88 Tuckahoe Drive. In Wright v. Wright, 93 Conn. 296, 300, 105 A. 684, this court, in spealdng of the term alimony, stated in part that “[ajlimony . . . is based upon the duty of a husband to continue to support a wife whom he has in legal effect abandoned. It defines that duty in terms of money, or property and decrees specific performance of it; and the State itself has .a social and financial interest in the performance of that duty.” (Emphasis added.) See Christiano v. Christiano, 131 Conn. 589, 593-94, 41 A.2d 779; Cary v. Gary, 112 Conn. 256, 259, 152 A. 302.
Since the express provisions of § 46-14 permit a wife to make a valid .attachment on real estate to secure a court award of alimony, I cannot see why such an award should not include a judgment ordering a transfer of title to the attached property, nor why such a judgment lien should not relate back to the attachment. Otherwise, the attachment made and the judgment rendered giving the wife a part of the husband’s estate would be superfluous.
I would, therefore, find error.