McLaughlin v. Bahre

166 A. 800, 35 Del. 446, 5 W.W. Harr. 446, 1933 Del. LEXIS 27
CourtSuperior Court of Delaware
DecidedMay 23, 1933
DocketNo. 218
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 166 A. 800 (McLaughlin v. Bahre) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Delaware primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McLaughlin v. Bahre, 166 A. 800, 35 Del. 446, 5 W.W. Harr. 446, 1933 Del. LEXIS 27 (Del. Ct. App. 1933).

Opinion

Harrington, J.,

delivering the opinion of the Court :

The statute in question, among other things, provides:

1. For the issuance of “a writ of foreign attachment * * . * against any person not an inhabitant of this State” after a return to a summons or copias showing that the defendant cannot be found and proof satisfactory to the court of the cause of action, or upon affidavit made that the defendant resides out of the State and is justly indebted to the said plaintiff in a sum exceeding $50.

2. For the attachment of all the defendant’s property, real and personal, that can be found in the jurisdiction, including shares of stock in any incorporated company.

3. For judgment against the defendant and an order for the sale of the property attached, unless the defendant shall appear generally before the expiration of the second term after the issuance of the writ.

4. For the appearance of the defendant, the opening of the judgment entered against him, and a trial of the case on its merits in certain cases, on petition filed, and for good cause shown even after the expiration of the second term after the issuance of the writ.

Under his writ of attachment, issued pursuant to the provisions of this statute, and, also, pursuant to the provisions of Sections 95 and 96 of the General Corporation Lato (a.s amended by 33 Del. Latos, c. 105, §§ 1, 2), the plaintiff seized certain stock in a Delaware Corporation which is alleged to belong to one of the defendants in the. judgment entered in that proceeding.

It is conceded that , the statute above referred to con[451]*451tains no express provision for notice to the defendants in the attachment proceedings. By reason of that fact, the petitioners contend that it violates Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and that any judgment based thereon is, therefore, void, though such judgment is not a judgment in personam and can only bind the property attached.

The plaintiff in the attachment judgment, on the other hand, points out that unless the defendant appears, no j udgment can be entered against him until the second term after the issuance of the writ. He, therefore, contends that where the seizure of property in the jurisdiction is provided for and ample opportunity for the defendants to be heard before any judgment can be entered is, also, given by the statute, that it is valid and not in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment.

Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, among other things, provides:

“* * * nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

The fifth amendment to that Constitution, though said to be a limitation on the powers of the Federal Government, instead of on the rights and powers of the several states (Wilson v. Balt. & Phila. R. Co., 5 Del. Ch. 524), also, among other things, provides that: “No person shall * * * be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. * * *”

True, it has since been modified in some slight particulars for the benefit of the defendant, but, substantially, the same foreign attachment statute was before the Supreme Court of the United States in Ownbey v. Morgan, 256 U. S 94, 41 S. Ct. 433, 65 L. Ed. 837, 17 A. L. R. 873. (For the proceedings in the same case, in both the Superior Court and the Supreme Court of this State, see, also, 6 Boyce [29 Del.] 379, 417, 100 A. 411, and 7 Boyce [30 Del] 297, 105 A. 838).

[452]*452The plaintiff in error in that case contended that the statute was invalid because under its provisions he was not permitted to appear and defend in the court below without entering special bail.

A slightly different phase of the due process clause of the 14th amendment was, therefore, before the court. That clause was, however, involved in the decision of the casé and Mr. Justice Pitney, in delivering the opinion of the majority of the court, points out:

1. That the Federal Constitution contains no description of those processes which it was intended to allow or to forbid, nor does it even declare what principles are to be applied in determining what is due process of law.

2. That in determining whether a particular statutory or other proceeding is consistent with that clause of the 14th amendment, it is necessary, in the first instance, howéver, to examine the other provisions of the constitution in order to ascertain whether any of them are in conflict with the particular proceeding, or process in question.

3. That if there is no such conflict what is due process of law may be ascertained by an examination of those settled usages and modes of proceedings existing in the common and statute law of England, before the emigration of our ancestors, and shown not to have been unsuited to their civil or political conditions, by having been acted on by them, after the settlement of this country.

See, also, Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78, 29 S. Ct. 14, 20, 53 L. Ed. 97, where the court, in discussing the same question of due process, not only applied the same rules but in more concise language, also, added: “A process of law, * ' * * which is not otherwise forbidden, must be taken to be due process of law, if it can show the sanction of settled usage both in England and in this country.” Our attention has not been called to any other pertinent clause of the constitution. In determining the mean[453]*453ing of the Fourteenth Amendment perhaps we might, therefore, state that the phrase “due process of law”' in the Federal Constitution and the phrase “law of the land,” as used in Magna Charta, in the various subsequent bills of rights in England, confirming or adding to that charter, and in the State constitutions in this country, including that of the State of Delaware (Constitution of 1897, Art. 1, § 7), have substantially the same meaning. Eames v. Savage, 77 Me. 212, 52 Am. Rep. 751, citing 2 Cokes Inst. 50, 51; see, also, 2 Cooley’s Constitutional Limitations (8th Ed.) 733, etc.; Wilson v. Balt. & Phila. R. R. Co., 5 Del. Ch. 524.

As was, also, pointed out in Eames v. Savage, supra, English political history is full of the strife between the crown, and the barons and the people. The crown seeking to enlarge its irresponsible prerogatives and the barons and the people insisting upon fixed, and certain laws.

The “Magna Charta,” and the various bills of rights in which the phrases above referred to were used, were demanded from the kings as safeguards against arbitrary action, against partial or unequal decrees.

The English colonies in America were familiar with the long conflict between customary or established law on the one hand and arbitrary prerogatives on the other, and not only claimed the protection of the English charters and bills of rights, but when they formed independent governments they sought to guard against arbitrary or unequal governmental action by inserting the same phrases used in them, in their constitutions.

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Bluebook (online)
166 A. 800, 35 Del. 446, 5 W.W. Harr. 446, 1933 Del. LEXIS 27, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mclaughlin-v-bahre-delsuperct-1933.