Boyle v. Musser-Sauntry Land, Logging & Manufacturing Co.

93 N.W. 520, 88 Minn. 456, 1903 Minn. LEXIS 431
CourtSupreme Court of Minnesota
DecidedFebruary 6, 1903
DocketNos. 13,147-(205)
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 93 N.W. 520 (Boyle v. Musser-Sauntry Land, Logging & Manufacturing Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Boyle v. Musser-Sauntry Land, Logging & Manufacturing Co., 93 N.W. 520, 88 Minn. 456, 1903 Minn. LEXIS 431 (Mich. 1903).

Opinion

COLLINS, J.

Writ of certiorari directed to one of the judges of the district court of Washington county. From the record it appears that the plaintiff is a citizen of the state of Minnesota, while the defendant is an Iowa corporation carrying on an extensive logging and lumbering business in the state of Minnesota, managed by an agent residing in Stillwater, and with a “public office” in that city; such agent being appointed and such office located in accordance with the provisions of Laws 1899, c. 69. In an action between these parties arising out of a contract entered into in this state, judgment was entered oñ May 25, 1902, in the district court above mentioned, in favor of the plaintiff, Boyle, and against defendant company, for nearly $9,000. Four days after the entry of this judgment, the Standard Lumber Company, another Iowa corporation, commenced an action in the district court of that state, in which Boyle was named as defendant, to recover from him a sum in excess of $1,500, in which the plaintiff caused a writ to issue, directed to the sheriff of the county in which the suit was brought, and requiring him to attach Boyle’s property, as a nonresident. The sheriff, as auxiliary to the writ of attachment, and in accordance with a statute of the state of Iowa, garnished this defendant, solely on account of' the Minnesota judgment; and thereupon plaintiff, as creditor, caused an execution to be issued on the judg[460]*460ment, and placed in the hands of the sheriff of Washington county for service. It is admitted that, within the jurisdiction of this sheriff, the defendant, judgment debtor, had a large quantity of personal property subject to levy and sale, and that it was the intention of the sheriff to forthwith levy upon such property to satisfy the execution. This plaintiff has never been served in the state of Iowa with any notice or process of any kind in the action brought by the Standard Lumber Company, or in the garnishment proceedings, and has not appeared therein. This defendant then obtained an order requiring the plaintiff to show cause before the district court of the county in which his judgment was entered why all proceedings upon the execution should not be stayed until the determination of the garnishment proceedings and the action in the state of Iowa, or until the defendant was released from any liability on account of the alleged garnishment. At the hearing this order to show cause was made absolute, and the sheriff was restrained from further proceeding with the execution.

We have a case, therefore, in which an execution has been issued to enforce the collection of a Minnesota judgment, obtained and entered on account of a Minnesota contract, against a debtor who, as a foreign corporation, is permitted to do business in this state solely because it has a resident agent appointed, and a public-office fixed here, as required by statute, and by reason thereof is a resident of this state for all purposes connected with its Minnesota business; and the enforcement of that execution and the collection of this judgment have been indefinitely stayed in order to enable a foreign corporation, which has no office and does no business in this state, to collect a debt in a court of its own state against a citizen of Minnesota who is not within the jurisdiction of the court in which that action has been brought, has never appeared therein, and upon whom personal service of the process of that court cannot be made unless he should be found within- its borders; the action last mentioned being wholly based upon an attempted seizure, through garnishee proceedings, of the Minnesota judgment, assignable and collectible in accordance with our own laws, and none other. The conclusion of the court below seems to have been based upon three cases: Blair v. Hilgedick, 45 [461]*461Minn. 23, 47 N. W. 310; Harvey v. Great Northern Ry. Co., 50 Minn. 405, 52 N. W. 905; Duxbury v. Shanahan, 84 Minn. 353, 87 N. W. 944.

We fail to see where this court, in the decisions referred to, has laid down a rule which justified such a restraining order. In Blair v. Hilgedick the main action and the garnishee proceedings were pending in the same court, and all of the parties were residents of the same county, in this state. In Harvey v. Great Northern Ry. Co. the defendant corporation, also garnishee, was a resident of this state, and, for the purposes of an action in that state, was a resident of Montana, through which its road ran. The indebtedness garnished was incurred in Montana during the time the debtor was a resident of that state, but who had subsequently removed therefrom. In Duxbury v. Shanahan the creditor and the garnishee resided in this state, and the property involved was in litigation in the courts in this state. In the Harvey case, only, was there any question of jurisdiction.

The order involved cannot be upheld, and two cases in this state clearly indicate such a conclusion. In Swedish-Am. Nat. Bank v. Bleecker, 72 Minn. 383, 75 N. W. 740, plaintiff, a resident of this state, brought an action here against a resident of North Dakota, garnished a foreign insurance company doing business in Minnesota, as well as in North Dakota, on account of a loss occurring in that state, and, publishing a summons in accordance with the laws of this state, claimed to have acquired jurisdiction over the defendant, and the right to subject the debt owing by the garnishee to the satisfaction of a debt due to him. It was held that as the creditor of the insurance company did not reside in Minnesota, nor was the company a Minnesota corporation, the proceedings would not lie. It was also held that, as between different states or sovereignties, the situs of a debt is at the domicile of the creditor, but, for the purposes of attachment or garnishment, the debt might also have a situs at the domicile of a debtor, and, further, that a creditor might by his voluntary act give the debt a situs at some place other than that of the creditor’s domicile; but,' said the court: “A third person claiming to be a creditor of such creditor cannot do this. Such a stranger has no power to change [462]*462the situs of the debt, or to give it a situs at a place where it would not otherwise have it.” That is just what the Standard Company is attempting to do here.

In McKinney v. Mills, 80 Minn. 478, 83 N. W. 452, this subject was considered in a garnishment case, where none of the parties —the plaintiff, the defendant, or the garnishee, who was served with a summons while temporarily engaged in business within this state — were residents of Minnesota. We held that the proceedings could not be maintained. It was further said that the language used in the Harvey case to the effect that, for the purposes of attachment, a debt has a situs wherever the debtor can be found, and that it is not material that the debt is not payable in the state where the attachment proceedings are instituted, was clearly obiter. An examination of the Harvey case will show this statement to be correct. All of the cases in this state in which this topic had then been considered were reviewed in the McKinney case. Attention was called to the fact that an examination of the adjudicated cases would convince the reader that the courts have involved this subject in great confusion, and reference was made to an annotation by Mr. Freeman in 69 Am. St. Rep., at page 116 (National v. Furtick, 2 Marvel, 35). In some cases it has been held that a simple debt is subject to garnishment at the residence of the debtor, — in other words, that his residence is the situs thereof for the purpose of jurisdiction in attachment and garnishment cases.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Provo City v. Jacobsen
176 P.2d 130 (Utah Supreme Court, 1947)
Williamson v. Falkenhagen
227 N.W. 429 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1929)
United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Haney
208 N.W. 17 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1926)
McNish v. Burch
207 N.W. 85 (South Dakota Supreme Court, 1926)
Mercantile State Bank v. Farmers Home Bank of Lily
199 N.W. 575 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1924)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
93 N.W. 520, 88 Minn. 456, 1903 Minn. LEXIS 431, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/boyle-v-musser-sauntry-land-logging-manufacturing-co-minn-1903.