Court Opinion

ID: 86813
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-28 16:00:50+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:13:08.461832
License: Public Domain

55 U.S. 610 (1852)
14 How. 610
JOHN DEACON, APPELLANT,
v.
CHARLES OLIVER AND ROBERT M. GIBBES, EXECUTORS OF ROBERT OLIVER, DECEASED.
Supreme Court of United States.

*613 It was argued by Mr. Davis and Mr. Howard, for the appellant, and Mr. Campbell and Mr. Johnson, for the appellees.
*622 Mr. Justice GRIER delivered the opinion of the court.
Without attempting to give a history of the facts of this case, as exhibited in the pleadings and proofs, or noticing all the objections of the equity of the bill, we think there are two of its charges or allegations, on which its whole equity rests, and which the complainant has failed to substantiate.
1. That there were in the hands of Robert Oliver at the time the attachment was laid, any chattels, rights, or credits of Lyde Goodwin, "which were bound by said attachment."
2. That Robert Oliver was guilty of falsehood or fraudulent concealment of facts, in his answers to the interrogatories proposed to him as garnishee in the attachment.
In 1816, and previous to his insolvency, Lyde Goodwin had become a shareholder in the Baltimore Mexican Company, to the extent of one ninth part. This company had furnished means to General Mina to fit out a warlike expedition against Mexico, then a dependency of Spain. The expedition of Mina had failed, and he had perished with it. This transaction of the company was illegal, and punishable as a misdemeanor, with fine and imprisonment. The contract was therefore void in law, and could not be the foundation of any debt, nor could the stock thus created be treated in law as a thing of value; and from the uncertainty of its future prospects, its value in the market was little better. It was merely possible that Mexico, if successful in her struggle for independence, might, at some future day, assume the payment of the debts contracted by Mina, and if, as it was possible, or perhaps probable, that at some day still further in the future the payment may be obtained. Goodwin's title in this possibility or expectancy, or whatever it might be called, was supposed to have passed to Brown, his assignee, under the insolvent act. Afterwards, in 1824, Mexico having achieved her independence, passed a decree promising to acknowledge "the debts that may be proven to have been contracted for the service of the nation by the Generals declared bene meritos de la patria," of whom Mina was one. This renewed the hopes of the company, that possibly something might be recovered hereafter on this pledge of the Mexican government; and Robert Oliver was appointed the attorney on the part of the company to prosecute their claim. Lyde Goodwin *623 being in actual want of the means of subsistence, persuaded Robert Oliver to advance him the sum of two thousand dollars, and take a transfer from Brown, his insolvent trustee of this claim, as security.
In this situation of affairs, the attachment of Baring, Brothers & Co. was served on Robert Oliver, as garnishee of Lyde Goodwin, in 1827. Now it is admitted that Oliver was a creditor of Lyde Goodwin, and not a debtor. His power of attorney put him in possession of nothing which could be attached as the property of Goodwin. The insolvent assignment was supposed to have vested Goodwin's interest in this expectancy, in Brown. If it did not do so, as has since been decided, Oliver had no title to Goodwin's claim. And if it did, and if Oliver held it merely as a security for the sum advanced by him, the equitable assignment taken as such security, was his own; it was but an instrument to obtain satisfaction for his debt; it conferred nothing but a right in equity. Whether it was valid or invalid, absolute or defeasible, it did not constitute him a debtor of Lyde Goodwin, or put him in possession of any of his credits or effects, so as to subject him to an attachment as Goodwin's garnishee. It was not till after the death of Robert Oliver, and more than ten years after the attachment of complainant was discontinued, that the United States made the Convention of April, 1839, with Mexico, under which Commissioners were appointed, before whom this claim of the Baltimore Company was proved, and acknowledged by Mexico as a just debt. Then for the first time, this uncertain claim or equity, assumed the form of a credit, and an existence as a legal chose in action. But in that character it never existed in the hands of Robert Oliver. If, at the time the attachment was served on him, the claim of Lyde Goodwin had existed as a debt due him by a citizen of Maryland, and Oliver held an equitable transfer either absolute or defeasible, it is abundantly evident that the proper person to be made garnishee in an attachment, would have been the debtor, not the equitable claimant of the debt. He has but an equity or a bare right, but whatever it is, it is his own, and his claim is in hostility both to the plaintiff and defendant in the attachment.
The whole foundation of the complainant's equity in this bill rests on the averment, that the interest of Lyde Goodwin, whatever it was, in this Mexican claim, "was bound by the attachment laid in the hands of Robert Oliver, as garnishee." The Merwin claim not having been assigned till after the attachment was withdrawn, need not be noticed. The decision of this point against the averment of the bill, would dispose of the case.
But as we think the charges made in the bill against Robert *624 Oliver, of false and fraudulent concealment, have not been sustained, it is due to the memory of one who always sustained a high reputation as a merchant and man of honor, to notice this point.
It must be remembered that the purpose of the interrogatories was to ascertain whether Oliver had in his hands any credits or effects of Lyde Goodwin, subject to attachment; and also that Brown, the insolvent assignee of Goodwin, was supposed to have had the title to Goodwin's interest vested in him. The legitimate inquiry was, therefore, not whether Brown had abused his trust, by selling or mortgaging the trust property for the benefit of Goodwin; or whether Oliver's claim under the assignee was valid or not. This inquiry was wholly irrelevant in the investigation, under the attachment proceeding. Nor was Oliver bound, in that investigation, to make any disclosure of the strength or weakness of his own title, which was hostile to that of the plaintiff. The discovery sought, was not of Oliver's equities, but of Goodwin's assets. Oliver's answers to the interrogatories were drawn, no doubt, by learned counsel, fully aware of the nature of the proceedings, and the rights of the parties under them. The answers were strictly true to the letter. The garnishee had not in his hands, "any funds, evidences of debt, stocks, certificates of stock, belonging to Lyde Goodwin, nor any acknowledgment by the Mexican government to said Lyde Goodwin," on which the attachment could be laid. What claims or securities he himself had as a creditor of Goodwin, the plaintiff in that proceeding had no right to inquire, nor was Oliver bound to answer. If he had nothing which the plaintiff could attach, it was no fraud on plaintiff to keep his own counsel, and make no disclosure as to the nature of his own securities.
The decree of the Circuit Court is therefore affirmed.

Order.
This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Maryland, and was argued by counsel. On consideration whereof, it is now here ordered, adjudged, and decreed, by this court, that the decree of the said Circuit Court in this cause be, and the same is hereby, affirmed, with costs.