Court Opinion

ID: 9649809
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:09:55.13964+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:15.084937
License: Public Domain

*34Dissenting Opinion by
Price, J.:
Because I believe the majority further erodes the doctrine of Custodia Legis and because I, like the lower court, do not under this doctrine perceive the fine .distinction between attachment and garnishment, I respectfully dissent.
In Ostroff v. Yaslyk, 204 Pa. Superior Ct. 66, 203 A.2d 347 (1964), it is clear that at the time of the action the funds involved were in the hands of the ad-ministratrix and on deposit in a Philadelphia bank. The Commonwealth was merely a prospective custodian of the fund. We also held that since the Commonwealth would never be more than a custodian and never would have a proprietary interest in that fund, there would be no involuntary annoyance. Such are not the facts of this case and, therefore, do not, to my view, form a basis for the majority’s position.
In Weicht v. Automobile Banking Corporation, 354 Pa. 433, 47 A.2d 705 (1946), I do not find a weakening of the doctrine as announced in Bulkley v. Eckert, 3 Pa. 368 (1846), and believe the doctrine of Custodia Legis as enunciated in Bulkley, supra, to still be the present law of this Commonwealth so long as the funds, as in the present case, are held in common with other funds. It seems to me that the distinction between unsegregated funds and a specific item of personal property, to-wit, an automobile, in and of itself supports the distinction. •Indeed, we have ourselves recognized that distinction in our discussion of the Weicht case in Ostroff, supra at p. 70.
The majority also complains of a blurring of the fine distinction between garnishment and attachment. I agree with the detailed references to the distinctions. I do not, however, believe that they make the slightest difference to the proper outcome of this case nor to the application of the doctrine of Custodia Legis. And this is particularly so under the posture of this appeal, concerned as it is with actual execution.
*35I would, therefore, hold that the funds here in dispute are subject to the protection of Custodia Legis, and would affirm the order of the lower court which sustained appellees’ preliminary objections and quashed the writ of execution as it affected appellees.