Dolan v. Mucci

2 N.E.2d 434, 294 Mass. 341, 1936 Mass. LEXIS 1225
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedMay 25, 1936
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 2 N.E.2d 434 (Dolan v. Mucci) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dolan v. Mucci, 2 N.E.2d 434, 294 Mass. 341, 1936 Mass. LEXIS 1225 (Mass. 1936).

Opinion

Donahue, J.

The plaintiff was named as trustee in an earlier action brought in the Superior Court by trustee writ on November 27, 1929, by Matthew Cummings Co. as plaintiff against one Grande as defendant. In that action the present plaintiff filed an answer as trustee admitting that at the time of the service of the writ upon him there were in his hands credits of the principal defendant Grande. The present defendant Mucci filed in the earlier action an adverse claim to those funds based on a written assignment to him from Grande dated May 16, 1930.

Before there were any further proceedings in the earlier action the adverse claimant Mucci executed on June 24, 1930, a bond with two sureties and delivered it to the trustee, the present plaintiff. In return the trustee paid to the adverse claimant the sum of $2,000. The condition of the bond was that the adverse claimant Mucci would “indemnify” the trustee, the present plaintiff, up to the sum of, $2,000, “of and from all suits, damages and costs, whatsoever, whereunto” the trustee “may be liable or obliged by law to pay” to the plaintiff in the trustee action “by reason of being charged as trustee” of the defendant therein.

Following the giving of the bond the plaintiff in the trustee action recovered a verdict on September 10, 1930, ¿gainst the principal defendant. In the adverse claim filed by the claimant he contended that at the time of the service of the writ on Dolan as trustee there were no attachable funds in his hands and that Dolan therefore should- not be charged as trustee. The case was referred to an auditor “to hear the parties and find the facts raised by the claimant’s answer.” Following the filing of the report of the auditor, who found that the trustee should be charged in the sum of $2,210, a judge of the Superior Court allowed motions of the plaintiff in that action that the trustee be charged and that the claimant’s claim be dismissed and [343]*343entered an order charging the trustee in the amount found by the auditor. On exceptions to this order taken by the adverse claimant the case came before this court, where his exceptions were overruled. Matthew Cummings Co. v. Grande, 281 Mass. 546.

The case of Matthew Cummings Co. v. Grande went to final judgment on February 13, 1933, and Dolan was thereby adjudged a trustee in the sum of $2,210 and execution issued on February 16, 1933. No demand thereunder was made on the trustee by an officer within thirty days of the date of final judgment. Such a demand was made on March 24, 1933, by an officer who made the return that the trustee “neglected and refused” to comply with the demand. On May 12, 1933, the Matthew Cummings Co. brought a writ of scire facias against the trustee Dolan in the Superior Court. Service was made on him and the writ was entered in court. He did not appear and was defaulted. That proceeding is still pending. Later, without any further demand by an officer, Dolan paid to the attorney of the Matthew Cummings Co. the amount for which he had been adjudged a trustee. No notice of the pendency of the scire facias was given to the present defendants by Dolan and notice of the payment made by him was not given to them prior to the bringing of the present action.

The plaintiff brought the present action in the Municipal Court of the City of Boston for an alleged breach of the condition of the bond. A judge of that court before whom the case was tried found for the plaintiff in the penal sum of the bond and ordered execution to issue for $2,210. The plaintiff later remitted the amount of $210 which was in excess of the amount indemnified by the bond. The judge reported to the Appellate Division his refusal to give certain requests for rulings filed by the defendants. The Appellate Division ordered the entry of “Report dismissed” and the defendants have appealed.

The giving of the bond here in suit on June 24, 1930, did not dissolve or affect the then existing attachment by trustee process. Credits thus attached must be “held to [344]*344respond to the final judgment,” (G. L. [Ter. Ed.] c. 246, § 20) unless, pursuant to the statutes, a bond to dissolve the attachment is given to the plaintiff in the trustee action either by an adverse claimant to the credits attached (G. L. [Ter. Ed.] c. 246, § 66) or by the defendant therein (G. L. [Ter. Ed.] c. 223, §§ 120, 125; Arlington Trust Co. v. Le Vine, 291 Mass. 245); and unless such bond is filed in court. Webb v. Cohen, 280 Mass. 292. The bond given by the adverse claimant ran to the trustee and not to the plaintiff in the trustee process. It contemplated the continuance of the attachment. No statutory bond was given.

During a period of thirty days following the entry of judgment on February 13, 1933, charging the trustee and fixing the amount for which he was charged, if a demand by force of an execution issued on that judgment had been made on the trustee by an officer, the trustee would have been obligated to pay over the credits in his hands to the plaintiff in trustee process. Barnes v. Shelburne Falls Savings Bank, 186 Mass. 574. For that length of time credits under a trustee attachment must be held by a trustee to respond exclusively to the judgment charging him.

No such demand was made within thirty days following the entry of judgment. That fact, however, did not dissolve the trustee attachment or render it inoperative. After the expiration of that period the credits attached were no longer held to respond exclusively to the judgment charging the trustee. “If the . . . credits in the hands of a person adjudged a" trustee are not demanded of him by force of the execution within thirty days after final judgment, they shall be liable to another attachment, whether made before or after the judgment; or if there has been no such second attachment, they may be recovered by the defendant.” G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 246, § 40. After thirty days from judgment the credits attached were still available to the plaintiff in trustee process upon a demand being made on execution by an officer unless, before such a demand, there was an existing second attachment, or unless an action had been begun by the defendant to recover the credits, or they had been paid by the trustee to the defendant. [345]*345“If no such second attachment of the . . . credits has been made, and no action has been brought therefor by the defendant, and if they have not been paid ... to the defendant before they are demanded of the trustee by the officer, the trustee shall be liable to pay . . . the same, when so demanded, although said thirty days have expired.” G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 246, § 41.

On the thirty-ninth day after the judgment charging the trustee, an officer by force of the execution made a demand on the trustee. In the time intervening between that day and the expiration of a thirty-day period after judgment no second attachment of the credits existed, no action to recover them was brought by the defendant in the trustee action and no payment to him was made by the trustee. Under G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 246, §§ 40, 41, a second attachment existing within that interval, “whether made before or after the judgment,” is given precedence over the trustee attachment, but no similar words are used in the statutes respecting the other two contingencies which may subordinate the trustee attachment, that is, the bringing of an action by the defendant to recover the attached credits or the making of a payment of those credits to him by the trustee.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2 N.E.2d 434, 294 Mass. 341, 1936 Mass. LEXIS 1225, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dolan-v-mucci-mass-1936.