Pennsylvania Railroad v. Peoples

31 Ohio St. (N.S.) 537
CourtOhio Supreme Court
DecidedDecember 15, 1877
StatusPublished

This text of 31 Ohio St. (N.S.) 537 (Pennsylvania Railroad v. Peoples) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pennsylvania Railroad v. Peoples, 31 Ohio St. (N.S.) 537 (Ohio 1877).

Opinion

Boynton, J.

1. It was held, in Myres v. Smith, 29 Ohio St. 120, that a defendant in attachment can not ask or secure the discharge of the garnishee on the groijnd that his answer fails to show that he has property in his hands subject to garnishment. The plaintiff is not concluded by the answer of the garnishee. Where his disclosure is not satisfactory to the plaintiff, section 218 of the code authorizes the latter to proceed against him by action, and to recover a judgment for the amount of the property and credits of every kind of the defendant in the possession of the garnishee and “ for whatever amount he is shown to be indebted to the defendant.”

It follows, as a necessary consequence, that if the failure upon the part of the garnishee to disclose an indebtedness to the defendant, or the possession of property belonging to the latter, will not authorize the discharge of the garnishee, such failure constitutes no ground to discharge or vacate the attachment.

2. It was also alleged, as a ground for vacating the attachment, that the cause of action stated in the petition, and upon which the process of garnishment is founded, [542]*542did not accrue'to the plaintiff within six years prior to the commencement of the action. Whether the effect contended for would follow, if the fact were true, may be doubted.

No such defense has, as yet, been interposed. If the right to plead the statute in bar of the action should be waived by the company, it could not be made available to defeat a proceeding purely ancillary. But it is a-sufficient answer to the point urged to say that the fact that the action was barred, if true, was not made to appear.

The petition of the plaintiff was the only evidence offered in support of this ground of the motion; and the language, fairly interpreted, fails to show that the right to recover had been lost by' lapse of time.

3. The next objection relied on is that the claim of the plaintiff is not a debt or demand arising upon a contract, judgment, or decree, and, therefore, that proceedings in attachment will not lie. This conclusion is readily admitted, if the fact is as claimed. The ninth subdivision of section 191 of the civil code provides that an attachment shall not be granted on the ground that the-defendant is a foreign corporation, or a non-resident of this state, for any claim other than a debt or demand arising upon contract, judgment, or decree. The petition avers that the defendant below, at the time the plaintiff' below took passage upon its train, was a common carrier of passengers for hire and reward; and that, for a consideration in that behalf paid, the defendant promised and agreed to cai’ry her safely from Haseltine to Youngstown. It follows from this averment that the defendant was bound to furnish her suitable and proper means of access to the train upon which she . was to ride, and was bound to stop the train a sufficient length of time for her to get aboard. These are implied obligations and duties, growing out of the contract to carry. There is no doubt that the action might have been ■founded in tort upon the breach of the common-law duty to exercise due care to carry safely.

The plaintiff had her election to set out the promise, its [543]*543consideration and breach, and ask judgment (1 Arch. N. P. 124), or to set out facts which gave rise to a liability in tort, and pray judgment thereon. In Angel on Carriers, § 434, it is said “ that the action of assumpsit is the well-known and common remedy for the breach of a contract not under seal; and it not only lies upon all express contracts not under seal, but also in all cases where the law implies a contract. When a person undertakes any office, employment, trust, or duty, he thereby, in contemplation of law, impliedly contracts with those who employ him to perform that with which he is entrusted, with integrity, diligence, and skill; and if he fails to do so, it is a breach of contract for which a party may have his remedy, in most cases, by action of assumpsit, as well as by action on the case. Corbett v. Packington, 6 B. & C. 268. In 2 Greenleaf’s Evidence, § 208, the author, in speaking of the duties and liabilities of common carriers, whether by land or water, says': “ The action against a carrier, in any of these modes, is usually in assumpsit upon the contract.” While the form of the action does not materially affect or vary the character of the evidence necessary to establish the liability of the carrier, there is no doubt that the cause of action in the present case arises upon contract, within the meaning of the above provision of the code.

4. Another ground for the discharge of the attachment, and the one most confidently relied on by counsel for the plaintiff in error, is, that the garnishee, the Pennsylvania Company, being organized under the laws of Pennsylvania, is not liable to the process of garnishment provided by section 200 of the code (S. & S. 550). The claim is founded on what is alleged to be a correct interpretation of the language of that section ; and if the fact is that the garnishee is a non-resident of the state, exercising no corporate powers or functions within its limits, the conclusion would doubtless follow that the company is not within the class of persons or corporations that are made liable by that section to garnishee process. Squair v. Shea, 26 Ohio St. 645.

[544]*544But it is an admitted fact in the case that the Pennsylvania Company is operating in Ohio, the Ashtabula, Youngstown, and Pittsburg Railroad—an Ohio corporation. We assume its right to thus operate the same has been legally acquired. “ A corporation created by one state can only exercise its corporate franchises in another by the comity of the latter.” Liverpool Ins. Co. v. Massachusetts, 10 Wall. 566. The right to operate a railroad and to receive fares and tolls is a franchise of a prerogative character, which no person can rightfully exercise without special grant from the legislature. The State v. Boston, C. & M. R. R. Co., 25 Vt. 438.

In McGregor v. Erie Ry. Co., 35 N. J. (Law) 97, it is said that “ the right to run the road is as much a part, of the franchise as the right to build it.”. In McGregor qui tam v. The Erie Ry. Co., ibid. 118, an action qui tarn was brought in New Jersey against the Erie Railway Company for taking unlawful tolls on parts of its lines within that state, and it was held that while the company was a foreign coi'poration, it was, at the same time, “ domestic to the full extent of the powers and franchises confirmed and invested in it, in New Jersey;” that “a corporation may have a two-fold organization, and be, so far as its relations to the state are concerned, both foreign and domestic. See State v. Northern Central Ry. Co., 18 Md. 193; Green’s Brice’s Ultra Vires, 546, et passim; Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. Sly, 65 Penna. St. 205; Balt. and Ohio R. R. Co. v. Gallahue’s Adm’rs., 12 Gratt. 655; A. & W. Sprague v. The H., P. & F. R. R. Co., 5 R. I. 233.

By section 24 of the general incorporation act of 1852 as amended March 19, 1869 (66 Ohio L.

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Related

Liverpool Insurance v. Massachusetts
77 U.S. 566 (Supreme Court, 1871)
Myers v. Smith
29 Ohio St. 120 (Ohio Supreme Court, 1876)
State v. Northern Central Railway Co.
18 Md. 193 (Court of Appeals of Maryland, 1862)
Balt. & Ohio R. R. v. Gallahue's adm'rs
12 Gratt. 655 (Supreme Court of Virginia, 1855)

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Bluebook (online)
31 Ohio St. (N.S.) 537, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pennsylvania-railroad-v-peoples-ohio-1877.