Morris Plan Ind. Bank of N.Y. v. Gunning

67 N.E.2d 510, 295 N.Y. 324
CourtNew York Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 29, 1946
StatusPublished
Cited by51 cases

This text of 67 N.E.2d 510 (Morris Plan Ind. Bank of N.Y. v. Gunning) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Morris Plan Ind. Bank of N.Y. v. Gunning, 67 N.E.2d 510, 295 N.Y. 324 (N.Y. 1946).

Opinion

Desmond, J.

Plaintiff Morris Plan Industrial Bank, a New I York corporation which holds an unsatisfied Pennsylvania judgment against nonappealing defendant Gunning, who lives and works in Pennsylvania, has been allowed, in this suit on that Pennsylvania judgment, to take out a warrant of attachment in New York against Gunning’s wages earned in Pennsylvania *328 from the “ third party ” appellant, Pennsylvania Railroad Company. The purpose and effect of that attachment is to subject to plaintiff’s claim the whole of Gunning’s wages so earned in Pennsylvania, although Pennsylvania law since 1845 has forbidden any garnishment or attachment of wages (Firmstone v. Mack, 49 Pa. 387) and the New York statutes, although not in terms forbidding attachment of wages, permit garnishment up to 10% of the wages only. If the decision here appealed from be right, then the total wages of a nonresident, earned outside this State, are subject toi levy in the New York courts, despite garnishee laws, so long as the debtor’s employer can be served with papers here.

The principal debtor Gunning has not appeared and the attack on the attachment is made by his employer, appellant Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Appellant is authorized to do, and is doing, business in this State. Although counsel for plaintiff-respondent states that the judgment obtained by his client against Gunning in Pennsylvania was on a debt contracted in New York, there is nothing in the papers to show that. So far as we are concerned this suit of plaintiff-respondent Morris Plan Bank against Gunning is on a Pennsylvania obligation.

Plaintiff, commencing this suit against Gunning in the New York City Municipal Court, applied to the Municipal Court, under section 916 of the Civil Practice Act, for a warrant of attachment for the purpose of obtaining jurisdiction over Gunning. The affidavit of plaintiff’s vice-president, on which the attachment was issued, shows that the property of Gunning, which plaintiff was attempting to attach in this State, consisted of the wages which Gunning was earning in Pennsylvania from appellant. The Municipal Court Marshál executed the warrant of- attachment in New York City by serving the papers on a representative of appellant. Appellant thereupon moved under section 948 of the Civil Practice Act, to vacate the attachment, urging that there was no debt due from it to Gunning in New York State and thus no attachable property here. Appellant made the further point also that, if any such debt was owing from the railroad company to Gunning in New York State, it was a debt for wages which, appellant railroad company contends, is exempt from such an attachment. The Municipal Court denied appellant’s motion to vacate. The Appellate Term *329 and the Appellate Division affirmed, the latter granting leave to appeal to this court and certifying a question to us.

This case does not, of course, directly involve a garnishee execution since a garnishee execution may he issued only after judgment. However, the ultimate purpose of procuring this attachment is to collect the judgment, when and if entered, out of Gunning’s xvages. Since the Marshal’s return of the attachment shows that he has purported to attach all moneys due Gunning from appellant, the execution that will he issued if this attachment be upheld and judgment entered in the cause, will authorize a levy on all of Gunning’s wages, not merely on the per cent thereof as to which a garnishee execution could be issued if judgment were obtainéd in New York against Gunning on personal service.

Appellant railroad company argues that the situs of its debt to Gunning is in Pennsylvania, not New York, and that, accordingly, such debt does not constitute property of Gunning attachable in New York, citing Plimpton v. Bigelow (93 N. Y. 592) and Douglass v. Phenix Ins. Co. (138 N. Y. 209). Both -those cases, construing the New York attachment statutes then in effect, held that a debt due from a foreign corporation to a New York resident could not be attached in this State since the situs of that' debt was not in New York but in the State where the foreign corporation had its domicile. Subsequent statutory changes in this State have, however, changed that rule. In 1936, by chapter 818 of the laws of that year, section 916 of the Civil Practice Act was amended by adding this: “ Within the meaning of this section there shall be included any indebtedness due or to become due from a non-resident or foreign corporation, upon whom or which service of process may be made within this state, to any person whether a non-resident or foreign corporation.” That 1936 amendment was clearly intended to abrogate the rule of Douglass v. Phenix Ins. Co. (supra), and to make subject to levy in this State debts due to nonresidents from foreign corporations upon which service could be effected within this State. In 1940, section 916" was rewritten and subdivision 3 thereof was put into its present form. Subdivision 3 of section 916 as so rewritten in 1940 subjects to attachment any contract debt “to a resident or non-resident person or corporation, from a resident or non-resident person or corporation, upon *330 whom or which service of process may be had within the' county ”, etc. We hold that these 1936 and 1940 amendments to section 916 were intended to authorize attachment in this State of a debt to a nonresident from a foreign corporation provided the foreign corporation can be personally served in New York. Harris v. Balk (198 U. S. 215) holds valid such levies and attachments when authorized by State law (see Restatement of Conflict of Laws, § 108). In Feinman v. Marks (294 N. Y. 367), we decided, among other things, that the New York Legislature may validly subject such debts to process within this State. Feinman v. Marks was a garnishee, not an attachment case, and it actually construed not the attachment statute that is here involved, but a 1939 amendment to the garnishment statute (Civ. Prac. Act, § 684), which 1939 amendment, we held, had the effect of allowing the garnishment in New York of wages earned outside the State from a foreign corporation found in this State. It follows logically from Feinman v. Marks that this Pennsylvania wage debt, owing by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company to Gunning, has a situs in New York and is not beyond the reach of New York process.

We pass to appellant’s next contention. Pointing out that our garnishee statute (Civ. Prac. Act, § 684), permits garnishee execution against 10% only of a judgment debtor’s wages, appellant argues that section 684 describes the only machinery whereby wages may ever be reached by execution in this State. Assuming, as it does, that our garnishee statute describes the only method whereby wages may be collected under a judgment in New York, appellant reasons that section 916 of the Civil Practice Act, above referred to, making foreign debts attachable in New York, cannot, therefore, apply to Avages. There are some cases in New York which angle toward that result (see Rolt-Wheeler v.

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Bluebook (online)
67 N.E.2d 510, 295 N.Y. 324, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/morris-plan-ind-bank-of-ny-v-gunning-ny-1946.