Orchard & Wilhelm Co. v. North

251 N.W. 895, 125 Neb. 723, 1933 Neb. LEXIS 283
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 29, 1933
DocketNo. 28702
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 251 N.W. 895 (Orchard & Wilhelm Co. v. North) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Orchard & Wilhelm Co. v. North, 251 N.W. 895, 125 Neb. 723, 1933 Neb. LEXIS 283 (Neb. 1933).

Opinion

Goss, C. J.

By this appeal United States National Bank of Omaha challenges the right of the district court to require the bank as garnishee to open a safe deposit box leased to defendant.

Plaintiff obtained judgment against Grenville P. North for $1,460.65 and costs, no part of which was paid. Two executions were issued and returned unsatisfied, the second being issued and returned on July 29, 1932. On that [724]*724date a third execution was delivered to the sheriff; also a garnishment summons, requiring the bank to appear and answer as to any property of defendant in its possession or under its control. The record shows that defendant had been examined July 14, 1932, before Judge Wright, in aid of execution, and had disclosed that he had a safe deposit box in the United States National Bank, containing insurance policies and other papers. No order was made thereon by Judge Wright and the execution had been returned unsatisfied.

In this garnishment proceeding in aid of execution, the bank as garnishee duly filed a written answer. The answer first pleaded that the bank had in its possession or control no goods, chattels, rights, properties, money or credits of defendant; then stated that on or about December 20, 1929, defendant leased from the bank a certain described box in the bank’s safety vaults, a copy of the lease agreement being attached to the answer, but alleged that it is specifically provided in the lease that the bank has no possession, custody or control over, access to, or knowledge of, the contents of the box; that the bank does not have a key which will open the box and there is no way whereby it alone can open the box; and that the only method of opening the box without injury is under the arrangement whereby both the key in the possession of the lessee and the key retained by the bank are necessary.

So far as the lease is concerned its provisions bear out the statements of fact in the' answer. No oral answer or other evidence was taken on this garnishment answer, the hearing on which was before Judge Thomsen; but the order made by Judge Thomsen, dated September 24, 1932, recites that “the matter was submitted on the answer of the United States National Bank, garnishee, and upon the testimony given at the hearing in aid of execution (meaning the hearing in aid of execution at which defendant North was examined before Judge Wright) and the record.” The clerk of [725]*725the district court certified that the record in that office “does not- show that any order was made by the court on or in connection with said hearing in aid of execution” (meaning the hearing at which defendant North was examined), except as shown by the bill of exceptions filed herein November 2, 1932. This must be understood and considered, however, in connection with the final order here appealed from, in which Judge Thomsen recited that the matter was “submitted on the answer of the * * * garnishee, and upon the testimony given (by defendant) at the hearing in aid of execution.” The bill of exceptions tendered by appellant, consisting of this testimony only, was returned by appellee with no amendments and was thus duly settled by the court.

The district court found that the United States National Bank, “garnishee, has in its possession or under its control a safe deposit box” leased by defendant, ordered the bank to open the box within ten days and to disclose its contents to plaintiff and to the sheriff for levy of execution; directing the garnishee, first, to notify defendant of its desire to proceed under the order and to request of him the use of his key to open the box without injury, and second, in the event of defendant’s refusal, that the garnishee shall drill or force the lock so as to make its contents available for inspection and execution. The expense of such drilling or forcing, not to exceed $2.50, was ordered paid by plaintiff, to be taxed as costs.

Section 20-1060, Comp. St. 1929, provides: “In cases where the garnishee, in answering such interrogatories, shall disclose that he has property in his possession or under his control belonging to the defendant or defendants in execution, the court shall order the same to be taken and sold by the officers upon execution, as in other cases.”.

The order is bottomed upon the theory that the garnishee had property of defendant in its possession under its control. Appellant therefore concludes that the district court regarded defendant as bailor and the bank as bailee [726]*726of the property contained in the safe deposit box; and devotes much of its argument to a discussion of the elements required in a bailment and to an analysis and criticism of opinions favorable to appellee in which the courts have (sometimes perhaps improperly) referred to a lessor of a safe deposit box as a bailee and to the lessee as a bailor, or to the result as a bailment.

By the terms of the lease it was beyond the power of defendant to open the box without the aid of the bank, using its key. So the bank had the physical possession of the box and the control of the means by which it could be opened. Under the admissions of the bank’s answer, it is entirely proper to say that the safe deposit box of defendant was under the control of the garnishee. Knowing modern life, we may take judicial notice and assume defendant leased the box for use. “The court takes judicial notice of the uses made of safety deposit boxes.” West Cache Sugar Co. v. Hendrickson, 11 A. L. R. 216 (56 Utah, 327). If he had any property subject to execution therein, it too was as much under the control of the law as the box itself, so far as access is concerned. The order of the court safeguarded from any levy such contents of the box as upon inspection might not be subject to execution. Indeed the law itself would protect property contained in the box but owned by others, or not subject to execution, and wrongfully converted or levied upon.

Garnishee attacks the final order of the court in which it is shown that, as a basis for the order, the court considered not only the answer of the garnishee but also the testimony of defendant North given in another proceeding before another judge. We are of the opinion that this testimony was incompetent to be considered in the garnishment proceedings and therefore ought not to be considered by us in review. Of course the garnishee was required to make up the bill of exceptions, consisting only of this testimony, because the court had based the order, in part at least, upon it. Our reasons for this conclusion [727]*727are founded upon a consideration of our statutes relating to garnishment in aid of execution, which is the provisional remedy under which this controversy arose. The procedure is found in sections 20-1056 to 20-1061, Comp. St. 1929, being the subdivision of the chapter of the Code relating to garnishment in aid of execution. Nowhere in that procedure is any power granted the court to require answers from, or to take testimony of, any one other than the garnishee. Our legislature has never seen fit to provide, in respect of garnishments, that other evidence may be taken than that of the garnishee. We cannot quote the statutes. A perusal will verify our conclusion.

It is true that the statutes do provide through another subdivision in this same chapter, but in the subdivision relating generally to proceedings in aid of execution, for an inquiry or disclosure of property owned by the garnishment debtor either by proceedings in equity, or as provided in the sections immediately following. Comp. St. 1929, secs. 20-1565 to 20-1582.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
251 N.W. 895, 125 Neb. 723, 1933 Neb. LEXIS 283, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/orchard-wilhelm-co-v-north-neb-1933.