Court Opinion

ID: 9417496
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:19:53.172034+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:44.310343
License: Public Domain

*500Mr. Justice Harlan
dissenting.
. I cannot assent to a judgment of affirmance in this case.
1. The statute pf Minnesota of 1881, upon which.the defendant in error rests his suit for damages, provides, among other things: “Whenever the property of any debtor is attached or levied upon by any officer, by virtue of any writ or process issued out of a court of record of “this State in favor of any creditor or garnishment made against any debtor, such debtor may, within ten days after the levying of such attachment, process or garnishment shall have been made, make an assignment of all his property and estate, not exempt by law, for the equal benefit of all his creditors, in proportion to their respective valid claims, who shall file releases of their debts and claims against such creditors as hereinafter provided, . . .. and, upon the making of such assignment, all attachments, levy or garnishment so made shall be dissolved upon the appointment and qualification of an assignee or receiver, and thereupon the officers shall deliver the property attached or levied upon to such assignee or receiver, unless the assignee shall, within five days after such assignment, file in the office of the clerk of the court where such attachment was issued or judgment was rendered a notice of his intention to retain such attachment, levy or garnishment, in which- case any such attachment, levy or garnishment shall inure to the benefit of all the said creditors, and may be enforced by the assignee by his substitution in the action as such in the same manner as the plaintiff might have enforced the same had such assignment not been made: Prometed, however, That this section shall not apply to cases where an execution has been issued upon a judgment in an action where the complaint has been filed in the office of the clerk of the court twenty days prior to the entry of the judgment.”
This statute did not operate to dissolve the attachment which issued from the Circuit Court of the United States in favor of Lapp & Flershem; for it applies only to writs or process issued out of “ a court of record of this State,” that is, a court of record established under the constitution and laws of *501Minnesota. If intended to embrace writs of attachment from a court of the United States, so as to vacate levies under such writs, without an order to that effect by the court under whose authority they were made, it would be inoperative. No State enactment can, proprio vigore, work the dissolution of an attachment issuing from a Federal court.
A different construction is inadmissible upon other grounds. By the 10th section of the statute it is provided that “No creditor of any insolvent debtor shall receive any benefit under the provisions of this act, or any payment of any share of the proceeds of the debtor’s estate unless he shall have first filed with the clerk of the District Court, in consideration of the benefits of the provisions of this act, a release to the debtor of all claims other than such as may be paid under the provisions of this act, for the benefit of such debtor, and thereupon the court or judge may direct that judgment be entered discharging such debtor from all claims or debts held by creditors, who shall have filed such releases.” If this act is to control the rights of the parties in the present case, the result is, that the prior right acquired by Lapp & Flershem under their suit and attachment in the Federal court is taken from them, and they are denied all interest in the proceeds as well of the property attached for their benefit as of the property assigned to Bennett, unless they give a release in full to their debtors. Such a result is not, in my judgment, consistent with the rights secured by the Constitution of the United States to the plaintiffs in error.
2. There is some misapprehension as to the time when the assignment to Bennett was -actually made. But it is clear from the evidence that the marshal levied before he acquired any right in the property attached by that officer. . In the brief filed in behalf of Bennett in the Circuit Court, in support of his application to be made a party in the suit of Lapp & Flershem against Yan Norman & Bro., in order that he might assert his claim, as assignee, to the goods seized by the marshal, and in support also of his motion to dissolve the attachment sued out by Lapp & Flershem — which brief is part of the record before us — it is said: “ The court will bear in mind *502that the assignment was not made and filed until some three hours after the levy of the attachment by the plaintiffs [Lapp & Flershem].’’ 'And in the opinion of the Supreme Court of Minnesota in this case, ,it is said : “ It seems that prior to the malting of the assignment i/n question the defendant, as United States marshal, by virtue of process of the Circuit Court, had 'attached the assigned property.” As the Federal court had jurisdiction of the suit in which was issued the attachment that came to the hands of the marshal, the goods seized by the latter were, from the moment of such seizure, in the cus.tody of that court, so far, at least, as to prevent the possession of the marshal from being disturbed by an action of replevin in behalf of Bennett. Freeman v. Howe, 24 How. 450; Buck v. Colbath, 3 Wall. 334; Krippendorf v. Hyde, 110 U. S. 276 ; Covell v. Heyman, 111 U. S. 176; Gumble v. Pitkin, 124 U. S. 131, 145. It was said in Lammon v. Feusier, 111 U. S. 19, that even where a marshal takes the property of a person not named in the writ, “ the property is in his official custody, and Under the control of the court whose officer he is, and whose writ he is executing; ” and that “ according to the decisions of this court the rightful owner cannot maintain an action of • replevin against him, nor recover the property specifically in any way, except in the-court from which the writ is issued.” '
3.- If Bennett’s right to the possession of the property covered by the assignment to him had accrued before the marshal made his levy, the latter might have been liable in trespass or in trover and conversion in any court of competent jurisdiction as to parties.’ Here, however, the attachment, which came to the hands of the marshal, was lawfully issued and was right: fully levied. That is conceded on all sides. Was it for that officer to pass upon the validity of a claim which accrued, if at all, subsequently to his taking the goods into his possession? His writ commanded him to take the goods of Nan Norman' & Bro.; and' he did so. He was also commanded to safely keep them, to satisfy the demand of Lapp Flershem. Could he be discharged from his obligation to so keep them except by an order of the court under whose direction he had pro-'ceeded ?, 'indeed, if he had surrendered possession, without *503leave first obtained from the Federal court, he could have been proceeded against for contempt in having parted with the possession of goods in the custody of that' court. Bennett asked leave tc> intervene in the suit in the Federal court, and such leave was granted; but he declined to exercise the privilege accorded to him. He moved, at the same time, to dissolve the attachment, and that motion was denied; the Federal court thereby plainly indicating to the marshal a purpose to hold the property until it had adjudicated Bennett’s claim. If Bennett had intervened in the suit in the Federal court, and if that court had dismissed his intervention, or' adjudged his claim to.be subordinate to that of Lapp' & Flershem under their attachment, he could have prosecuted an appeal to this court. Gumble v. Pitkin, 113 U. S. 545.
A marshal who levies an attachment from a Circuit Court of the United States in a suit of which it has complete jurisdiction, upon goods subject at the time to such attachment, is not, I think, liable in trover and conversion for their value, upon his refusal, in the absence of any direction of the court, under whose writ they were seized, to surrender possession; especially to one whose right, if any, accrued subsequently to his levy. To hold him, under such circumstances, liable to a suit in a state court for damages, is to invite those conflicts between courts of different jurisdictions and their respective officers, which the former decisions of this court have sought to prevent.