Court Opinion

ID: 9560634
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:52:43.978158+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:03.711722
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION OF WAKATSUKI, J.
I concur in affirming the trial court’s judgment, but I do not agree with Part IV of the majority’s opinion. In my view, the better policy is to hold that the creditor is entitled to garnishee the entire amount in the joint account (subject, of course, to the amount of the judgment against the debtor) without regard to each depositor’s “equitable interest.”
Here, any one of those named on the joint account has unconditional power to withdraw all or any part of the monies held in the account. HRS § 403-134 (1985). If Charles Howser chose to voluntarily extinguish his adjudged debt to Traders Travel by drawing a check for $37,389.07 or withdrawing that amount from the account in question, Pioneer Federal would have been obligated to honor the check or the demand for withdrawal. HRS § 490:4-402 (1985). Howser’s wife and his daughters could not have prevented Pioneer Federal from honoring the transaction by claiming that Howser was taking more than his equitable share. The result should not be any different merely because Howser resists voluntary payment and must be compelled through garnishment proceedings to discharge his debt. See Park Enterprises v. Trach, 233 Minn. 467, 47 N.W.2d 194 (1951).
The Supreme Court of Minnesota stated that by entering into a joint bank account, such as we have here, the joint account holders
have virtually declared that they do not wish to be inconvenienced by any strict accountability as between themselves .... [A]ny attempt to base the extent of garnishment upon the respective amounts of the account owned by each depositor will compel courts and juries to grope with problems which the depositors themselves have declared to be of no consequence. Let them abide the results which flow from their own declared purposes.
Park Enterprises v. Trach, 233 Minn, at 472, 47 N.W.2d at 197.