Lehman v. Berdin

15 F. Cas. 251, 5 Dill. 340
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Arkansas
DecidedApril 15, 1878
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 15 F. Cas. 251 (Lehman v. Berdin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lehman v. Berdin, 15 F. Cas. 251, 5 Dill. 340 (circtedar 1878).

Opinion

CALDWELL, District Judge.

The reasons assigned in support of the plaintiff’s motion to strike from the files the defendant’s traverse of the grounds of attachment are, that the execution by the latter of the bond under section 416, Gantt’s Dig., operates (1) to discharge the attachment: (2) estops the defendant from contesting the validity of the attachment on any grounds, or for any purpose; and (3) renders the obligors in the bond liable absolutely for the amount of any judgment the plaintiffs may recover in the action, without reference to the question whether the attachment was rightfully or wrongfully sued out. There are adjudged cases in some of the states that seem to support this view. Hazlerigg v. Donaldson, 2 Metc. (Ky.) 445; Inman v. Strattan, 4 Bush, 445; Dierolf v. Winterfield, 24 Wis. 143; Endress v. Ent, 18 Kan. 236: Payne v. Snell, 3 Mo. 409; Kennedy v. Morrison, 31 Tex. 207.

But the question is one in which the law of this state, as construed by the supreme court of the state, furnishes the rule of decision to this court. The question has not been before that court since the adoption of the Code, but it arose under prior statutes, which were the legal equivalent of section 416 of the Code. Under the Revised Statutes of this state the defendant in an' attachment suit might retain the property attached upon giving bond conditioned “that he will pay and abide the judgment of the court, or that his security will do the same for him;” and it was further provided that “when the defendant shall have filed the bond as required in the last preceding section, the attachment shall be released, and the suit proceed as other suits at law.” Gould’s Dig. c. 17, §§ 13, 14.

In Delano v. Kennedy, 5 Ark. 457, the question was presented, whether giving the bond provided for by these sections precluded the defendant from pleading in abatement the want of a sufficient attachment bond, and the court held it did not, and that the legal effect of giving such bond was to discharge the property from the lien of the attachment and substitute the defendant’s bond in its stead; that in all other respects the rights of the parties in the attachment proceeding remained the same as though no bond had been given, and the property had remained in the hands of the officer. Chief Justice Ringo dissented from the judgment of the court, and, in his dissenting opinion, states very concisely the views maintained respectively by the majority and minority [252]*252■of the court. He said: “The majority of this court, if I correctly understand their opinion, hold that', the legal operation of this act of the defendants is to release so much of the attachment only as operates upon and binds their property, by substituting instead thereof the bonds and personal security taken by the sheriff, but that it has no effect whatever upon the attachment bend filed by the plaintiff. I hold that the regal operation thereof is to release the whole attachment, and place the parties to the action, respectively, in the same situation as if the original process had been a writ of capias ad respondendum,-instead of an attachment, and that the proceedings in the writ thenceforward must be the same as if no such bond had been given, and no process other than a capias issued.”

In Childress v. Fowler, 9 Ark. 159, the court was asked to review the ruling in the case of Delano v. Kennedy, supra, and, in view of the dissent of the chief justice in that case, it did so, and, after full argument,' reaffirmed the doctrine in that case, in an elaborate opinion, concurred in by all the judges, and which concludes in this language: “We therefore hold that the execution of the bond authorized by the 13th section does not impair any of the defendant's rights of defence, and that, after its execution, he may defend the action either by plea in abatement interposed in apt time and in due form, or by plea in bar, in the same manner in every respect as if he had not executed the bond and had suffered the property attached to remain in the hands of the sheriff.”

After these decisions were pronounced, and by act of March 7, 1867 [Laws Ark. 1866-67, p. 294], the attachment law of the state was amended so as to allow the defendant to put in issue the truth of the plaintiff's affidavit to procure the attachment, thus making the law in this respect what it now is under the Code; and this amendatory act further provided that the defendant might “give bond to dissolve the attachment.” And section 6 declared: “That the conditions of bonds of persons dissolving attachments shall hereafter be, that he will appear and answer the plaintiff’s demand at such time and place as by law he should, and that he will pay and abide the judgment of the court.”-

It will be observed that the .language of this section, like that of the Kevised Statutes, is better calculated to support the plaintiff’s contention than is the language of section 416. And in the case of Ward v. Carlton, 26 Ark. 662, the very question before the court was presented to the supreme court of the state for its determination. The defendant, whose property had been attached, had given the bond required by the act of March 7th, 1867, and the court below had thereupon declared the attachment “dissolved.” After-wards the defendant filed his plea denying the truth of the plaintiff’s affidavit upon which the attachment was issued. The court say: “The plaintiff urges on the court that the giving of the bond precludes all inquiry into the truthfulness of the affidavit. If it be admitted that the defendant, after giving bond, cannot question the truthfulness of the original affidavit, the result is that the plaintiff, by his perjury, is allowed to hold the principal and his sureties for the amount of his judgment.” And after entering into a forcible argument to show that such a construction of the statute would not be in har-mw with the objects and purposes of the attachment law, and would favor the unscrupulous creditor, and result prejudicially to conscientious creditors and honest debtors alike, the court, in conclusion, say that, after thev execution of such bond, “the defendant may show, at any time before judgment, that the original affidavit is not true.” These authorities are decisive of the question in this state.

It is argued that the Kentucky ruling on the question should be followed by the courts in Arkansas, because the Code of the latter state is a copy of the Code of the former, and the section under discussion identically the same in both. If the section of the Code in question was new law in this state, there would be some force in the 'suggestion; but, as we have seen, this provision is in legal effect precisely what the former law of the state was — is, in fact, a mere re-enactment of the old law; and if the legislature is to be credited with legislating in reference to knowledge of the decisions of the courts upon this question, the presumption must be indulged that they were more familiar with the decisions of their own courts than with those of a sister state, and that they did not, by simply re-enacting a statute of the state, intend to change its meaning, or adopt an exposition of such statute by the courts of a sister state opposed to the views of the supreme court of their own state.

Moreover, the provision is not peculiar to the Kentucky Code, but was found in the Codes of New York and Ohio, and probably other states, before its adoption by the former state (see sections 199 and 212, Code Ohio, and 240 and 241, Code N. Y.); and the construction of the section bv the New York and Ohio courts is in harmony with the decisions in this state, and opposed to the view of the Kentucky courts.

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Bluebook (online)
15 F. Cas. 251, 5 Dill. 340, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lehman-v-berdin-circtedar-1878.