Allison v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Co.

40 N.W. 813, 76 Iowa 209, 1888 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 175
Supreme Court of Iowa·Decided December 19, 1888·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

Robinson, J.

— On the seventeenth day of October, 1867, a judgment was rendered by the district court of Union county in favor of plaintiff, and against N. Young, for the sum of $464.82, and costs. On the sixteenth day of July, 1887, the garnishee was served with notice of garnishment, entitled as in a case of Arthur Allison v. N. Young, or N. S. Young. Subsequently the answer of the garnishee was taken in court. It admitted owing to N. S. Young the sum. of two thousand dollars, but denied knowledge of indebtedness to N. Young. The cause was tried to a jury, and a verdict returned for plaintiff, on which judgment was rendered.

[211] 1. aebtorinrof discharge of fes a<?judicata, I. After the original answer of the garnishee was taken, N. S. Young filed- a motion to discharge the garnishee “on the answer made, and from further answer in said cause, so far as relates to N. S. Young,” on the ground that he was never a defendant in the action, and no judgment was ever rendered against him or his property, and that the judgment was against N. Young alone, a wholly different person, and the name of N. S. Young was inserted in the notice of garnishment by mistake, accident, or fraud. On the submission of this motion the court found from the evidence as it appeared from the records and papers that N. S. Young was nota defendant in the judgment and execution, and that his name was inserted in the garnishee’s notice without authority of record. Ittheref ore sustained the motion, and discharged the garnishee as to the claim against N. S. Young, and further ordered “issues to be made up-within next week, and cause continued. ” Three days later the plaintiff filed a pleading, in which he alleged that the money held by the garnishee was in fact due to N. Young; that N. Young was the identical person who now claims to be N. S. Young; that the indebtedness on which the judgment in controversy was rendered was incurrred by N. S. Young, who then bore the name of N. Young. Judgment requiring the garnishee to pay from the funds in its possession the amount due on the judgment of plaintiff was asked. Thereafter the garnishee filed. its amended answer, in which it denied that it was in any manner indebted to N. Young, but admitted its indebtedness to N. S. Young, who, it charged, was a different person from N. Young. On the same day, to-wit, November 29, 1887, N. S. Young filed a pleading in which he alleged that the liability of the garnishee, so far as it related to him, was adjudicated in the order sustaining. his motion to dismiss the garnishee. A demurrer to this pleading was sustained on the sixth day of December, and three days later N. S. Young filed a pleading as follows : “ Denies that he ever was in any [212] manner indebted to the plaintiff on the indebtedness set out in the original suit against N. Young; nor was he ever sued as defendant in said cause ; nor was any judgment ever rendered against him, or execution issued against him or his property in said cause. Avers that said suit, judgment and execution were against N. Young, who is a different and independent person, and the only person sued, and against whom judgment was rendered in said cause. ” To this pleading the plaintiff filed a general denial.

It is insisted by appellants that the ruling on the motion of N. S. Young to dismiss the garnishee as to him was an adjudication of the liability of the garnishee, final in its nature and effect, and that the court erred in its ruling on the demurrer of plaintiff. We do not think the record sustains these claims. The plaintiff had caused to be inserted in the notice to the garnishee the name of N. S. Young as a defendant. That name had not previously appeared in the record, and the motion was based upon that fact. The court, in effect, held that the record did not justify, the insertion of the name. But the questions of N. Young and N. S. Young being but one person, and the incurring of the indebtedness in question by N. S. Young in the name of N. Young, and his use of that name as his own, were not raised by the motion, nor considered as adjudicated by the parties. After the ruling on the demurrer was made, N. S. Young filed an answer, in which he put these and other questions in issue. It is evident that the issues raised by this answer cannot be held to have been adjudicated by the ruling on the motion.

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Allison v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Co., 40 N.W. 813, 76 Iowa 209, 1888 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 175 (iowa 1888).

40 N.W. 813 (Allison v. Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Co.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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