Hauf v. Wilson

31 F. 384, 1887 U.S. App. LEXIS 2616
CourtUnited States Circuit Court
DecidedJuly 6, 1887
StatusPublished

This text of 31 F. 384 (Hauf v. Wilson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Circuit Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hauf v. Wilson, 31 F. 384, 1887 U.S. App. LEXIS 2616 (uscirct 1887).

Opinion

Hammond, J.

It is not at all necessary, in the view taken by the court, to decide the interesting question so ably presented by the brief of petitioner’s counsel, whether a eou”rt of law will, ex comitate, protect a garnishee in a foreign jurisdiction by staying the suit at law until the court of tho foreign jurisdiction can decide the attachment suit, as was done in Lynch v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 17 Fed. Rep. 627; nor whether this court and the state court are, in the sense of that case, foreign to each other, it being held in Radford v. Folsom, 14 Fed. Rep. 97, that they are not; nor to consider any of the difficulties suggested by the petition and argument as to the inconvenience and danger of defendants’ situation; for, when the petition is analyzed, and the facts are properly understood, these questions do not arise, in my judgment. The petition and argument proceed upon the assumption that the state court first acquired jurisdiction of the subject-matter and of the parlies, and that while it may be conceded that neither a plea in abatement of a former suit pending, nor an injunction from the equity side of this court against the plaintiff's suit at law, would avail petitioner, the comity of courts would induce this court to continue the case here until the other court had finished its work. There are many answers to this, but the chief one is that the assumption of fact on which the application proceeds is wholly unfounded. If the state court has at all acquired any jurisdiction over the parties and subject-matter of the suit pending in this court, it has done so since the suit here was commenced, and only by the amended bill filed there for tfie purpose of ousting the jurisdiction of this court.

And here it may be said that this application lor the exercise of our comity comes with an ill grace from those who have filed a bill elsewhere to oust our jurisdiction, and place the party and his attorney here under an injunction that may be void, if not a contempt of this court. If the injunction be valid, the comity is not needed, and the petitioner has all he wants. If it be invalid, he ought to be willing to stand by it, at least until it is dissolved, before he applies to our comity for relief. I take it that Wilson, the petitioner, is working hand in hand with the creditors of ¡áolmson; since T see that he is urging their case with the most [386]*386complete familiarity with all its details, that he files his answers there, his pleas and petitions here, and neither here nor there offers to pay in the money to one or the other court, and he done with it so far as lie'is concerned. His proceedings seem to contemplate all the delay he can get out of the situation, and that is greatest, perhaps, in the state court. If his proceedings were defensive, and not dilatory, he would tender the money to one court or the other, either of which would, no doubt, take it; and by comity or otherwise dispose of it properly, so as to avert- his imaginary danger, for it is only imaginary.

The original bill that was filed was a general attachment bill against Solmson, alleging that he had fraudulently disposed of his property, and that the debt supposed to be due to him from Wilson, the defendant and petitioner here, was attached to secure the creditors in whatever judgment they might recover on their claims against Solmson.' If anjr fraudulent disposition he had made of this note sued on here, or others like it, were involved in the attachment suit, it was only evidentially involved, like the fraudulent disposition of a stock of goods or parcel of real estate would have been, since any fraudulent transfer of his property would have supported the allegations of the bill. It was a mere matter of evidence, and nothing more. The subject-matter of that bill, therefore, was whether Solmson had made any fraudulent disposition of his property,—no more about a fraudulent transfer of these notes than any other fraudulent transaction that could be fished out and proved by overhauling his affairs. He and his creditors were the only parties to it; Wilson, the defendant here, being only a garnishee and an outside party altogether. If he did not owe Solmson, he was in no danger whatever, and his answer would conclude that fact. If he had made a negotiable note which was capable of being transferred to innocent third parties, that fact, being set up as an answer, was a good defense to the garnishment. He could have said that he owed the holder, and did not know who that holder was, and there could be no judgment against him, and he could not be compelled to pay without the production of the note. • That was the commercial law, and the state court, as any other, would protect him under it. It was no answer to this to say that Solmson had fraudulently transferred or indorsed the note. The maker had nothing to do with that; and, unless the holder were a party to the fraud, he could not be affected by It; and that was a complete answer to the garnishment, and fully protected the garnishee. That was the situation under the original bill. The plaintiff here was not a party to it, and the controversy whether he be a guilty or an innocent indorsee of the note was in no proper sense a part of the subject-matter of that bill. Hence the only subject-matter of the suit here in this court being his title to the note, and the right to sue on it, and the parties in the state court being wholly different, that court acquired no jurisdiction over the same parties, or the same subject-matter, as we have in charge here.

So, coming here, Wilson, the maker, being informed of the facts by the bill or otherwise, might probably have pleaded that the plaintiff liad no title; that he was a holder without consideration, and that the note [387]*387■did not belong to liim; that his title to the note was a fraudulent one, averring the facts that made it so, or, in other words, that he was not the owner of it,—it being immaterial, so far as he was concerned, whether the real ownership was in Solmson or his creditors under the attachment. 1 Pars. Notes & B. 188, et nota, 255. It'may be that since the alleged fraud was one that pertained to creditors, and was only voidable at their suit, it is not one which the maker could set up as against the alleged fraudulent indorsee, suing him here,—which is a point we need not now decide; nor whether the fact that he had been attached by the creditors -would confer the right to make that defense, if otherwise he did not have that right. If he could do this, that would be a complete defense here, and the plaintiff would fail for want of title. Either here or there he would have, then, a complete defense, if the allegation of a fraudulent transfer be true. In the state court no judgment could go against him as garnishee, because the note was negotiable, and under the commercial law' the maker is not liable to garnishment at the suit of the payee’s creditors until the note itself is produced, and its ownership by them established. The court would discharge him immediately as garnishee, on such an answer, and not hold him in peril until the creditors could establish a title to the note. We are not informed whether he made that defense, but presumably he did, and he is therefore in no danger there. Here, in this court, no judgment could go against him unless plaintiff could show a good title under the commercial law. So far, then, from his being in danger of paying twice, he might escape in both suits; for, if the plaintiff here has no good title, this suit would fail, and he ought to have been discharged immediately in the state court on a proper garnishee’s answer, and the honest holder would have to commence over again as to him.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
31 F. 384, 1887 U.S. App. LEXIS 2616, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hauf-v-wilson-uscirct-1887.