Marshall Field & Co. v. Freed

191 Ill. App. 619, 1915 Ill. App. LEXIS 1069
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMarch 11, 1915
DocketGen. No. 20,190
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 191 Ill. App. 619 (Marshall Field & Co. v. Freed) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Marshall Field & Co. v. Freed, 191 Ill. App. 619, 1915 Ill. App. LEXIS 1069 (Ill. Ct. App. 1915).

Opinion

Mr. Presiding Justice Fitch

delivered the opinion of the court.

The plaintiff, Marshall Field & Company, recovered a judgment in the Superior Court against the defendant, Isidor B. Freed, in an action on the case for fráud and deceit. Due service of process was had on the defendant and he entered his appear aneé, but filed no plea. A default was thereupon entered for want of a plea, and the damages were assessed by a jury. A writ of fieri facias was issued and placed in the hands of the sheriff. In due course, the sheriff returned this writ “no property found and no part satisfied,” certifying in his return that he had made a demand upon the defendant for the surrender of property to satisfy the writ, and had informed him that if he failed to comply with such demand he would be liable to arrest upon an execution against his body. Several months later, apparently as a matter of course and without any preliminary affidavit being filed, an order was entered directing the issuance of a capias ad satisfaciendum, and under this writ the sheriff arrested the defendant and committed him to jail on October 2, 1913. The next day, on motion of the defendant, an order was entered quashing the capias, and the defendant was released from custody. On October 4, 1913, the plaintiff made a motion to vacate the order quashing the writ, and on October 27, 1913, this motion was heard and overruled. Exceptions were duly preserved to each of these rulings, and this writ of error is prosecuted to review the same.

Section 4 of chapter 77, R. S. (J. & A. ¶ 6750), provides that the person in whose favor any judgment may be obtained “may have execution thereon in the usual form, directed to the proper officer of any county, in this state, against the lands and tenements, goods and chattels of the person against whom the same is obtained, or against his body, when the same is authorized by law.” Section 5 (J. & A. ¶ 6751) of the same chapter provides that “no execution shall issue against the body of the defendant,' except when the judgment shall have been obtained for a tort committed by such defendant, or unless the defendant shall have been held to bail- upon a writ of capias ad satisfaciendum (respondendum) as provided by law, or he shall refuse to deliver up his estate for the benefit of his creditors.” Section 62 (J. & A. ¶ 6809) of the same chapter provides, in substance, that if upon the return of an execution unsatisfied, in whole or in part, the judgment creditor, or his agent or attorney, shall make an affidavit to the effect that he believes the debtor has property which he unjustly refuses to surrender, or that since the debt was contracted the debtor has fraudulently disposed of some part of his property to defraud his creditors, and shall procure the order of some judge or master in chancery certifying that the .affidavit shows probable cause for the issuance of an execution against the body of the debtor, then such a writ may be issued.

Counsel seem to agree that all the questions here presented depend upon the proper construction to be given to the word “or,” as used in section 4, supra. Plaintiff’s counsel contends in substance, that the word “or,” as used in that section, does not require the ■ judgment creditor in a tort action to elect whether he will have an execution against the property of the debtor, or one against his body, but that he may have either or both, at any time until satisfaction is obtained. If this contention be sound, the word “and,” rather than the word “or,” should properly have been used in the section in question, and this, in effect, is the position of plaintiff’s counsel. Defendant’s counsel, on the other hand, insists that the word “or’’ was advisedly and not carelessly used, and requires the creditor to elect which of the two writs he will have, and that such election when made is final, precluding any subsequent resort to the other kind of execution.

In support of defendant’s contention, his counsel cites the case of Schwarzschild & Sulzberger v. Goldstem, 121 Ill. App. 1. The decision in that case turned upon the construction of section 3 of article 11 of the Act in relation to justices of the peace (R. S. ch. 79J. & A. ¶ 6981), which reads as follows: “Upon all judgments in actions in tort, or where the defendant is in custody or has been held to bail upon a capias, as provided in this act, the justice may issue an execution against the body or goods and chattels of the defendant, at the election of the plaintiff.” The court held—Mr. Justice Adams delivering the opinion of the court—that the words “at the election of the plaintiff,” in connection with the word “or,” as found in the section of the statute then under consideration, could only be given effect by requiring the plaintiff to a judgment in a justice’s court to choose whether he will have an execution against the body of the defendant, or an execution against his property, and that such choice, when made, is followed by the usual consequences attendant upon an election between inconsistent remedies. It appears that in that case an execution against the property of the debtor had been issued and returned before the capias was issued, and the court held upon the principle above stated, that the issuance of the first writ constituted an election within the meaning of the statute, and that the consequence of such election was that the capias subsequently issued was unauthorized.

It will be noted that the clause “at the election of the plaintiff,” which is contained in the section of the Justices’ Act that was under consideration in the case cited, is not found in section 4 of chapter 77, or elsewhere in that chapter, which relates to judgments and executions in courts of record. Nevertheless, the word “or,” even without that clause, imports a choice between two alternatives. As ordinarily used, it means “one or the other of two, but not both.” 29 Cyc. 1502; Kuehner v. City of Freeport, 143 Ill. 92, 100. At common law an execution against the property of a defendant and against his body could lawfully be issued simultaneously. The fact that either writ had been issued and was in the hands of the sheriff unexecuted did not, at common law, preclude the right to the issuance of the other. 17 Cyc. 1504. The judgment creditor had the right to both writs at the same time, though he could have but one satisfaction. If, therefore, the Legislature had used the word “and” in section 4 instead of the word “or,” that section would have been merely declaratory of the common law in this respect. This suggests at once that the word “or” in that section was advisedly and intentionally used, and • indicates an intention on the part of the Legislature to change the common-law rule by giving to the judgment creditor in a court of record the right to have either writ at his option, but not both at the same time. We are clearly of the opinion that this is the sense in which it is used in section 4.

In this case, the writs were not both issued at the same time. The capias was not issued until after the fieri facias had been returned nulla bona. The first question to be determined, therefore, is whether the plaintiff, by electing in the first instance to sue out a fieri facias upon his judgment, was precluded from afterwards having a capias ad satisfaciendum upon the return of the first writ unsatisfied. There is no inconsistency in these remedies. The purpose of each is to obtain satisfaction of the judgment.

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Bluebook (online)
191 Ill. App. 619, 1915 Ill. App. LEXIS 1069, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/marshall-field-co-v-freed-illappct-1915.