Rex v. Paramount Rubber Co. of New Jersey

168 A. 366, 110 Pa. Super. 536, 1933 Pa. Super. LEXIS 92
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedApril 21, 1933
DocketAppeal 52
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 168 A. 366 (Rex v. Paramount Rubber Co. of New Jersey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rex v. Paramount Rubber Co. of New Jersey, 168 A. 366, 110 Pa. Super. 536, 1933 Pa. Super. LEXIS 92 (Pa. Ct. App. 1933).

Opinion

Opinion by

Keller, J.,

A rule to quash a writ of foreign attachment is not the proper proceeding to determine whether a bill of sale and transfer of all its property in this State made by the defendant foreign corporation to a Pennsylvania corporation bearing the same name, and with the same officers and management, was in fraud of the former’s creditors: Welmet B. & L. Assn. v. Matchica, 310 Pa. 275, 278, 165 Atl. 227. That question can better be determined on an interpleader issue under the Act of June 22, 1931, P. L. 883, following a claim of property by the Pennsylvania corporation; or on the answers to interrogatories by the garnishee in the scire facias, and the trial of the scire facias before *538 a jury: Morgan v. Watmough, 5 Whart. 125, 127; Welmet B. So L. Assn. v. Matchica, supra, p. 278.

The real point involved in this appeal is whether the sheriff’s return is so defective on its face as to require the writ to he quashed.

The sheriff’s return was as follows: “Attached, as within commanded, the goods, chattels, moneys and credits of the within named defendant in the hands of E. R. Lynn, Superintendent, on the 22d day of September, 1931, at 10:00 o’clock A. M., and then and there in the presence of Roberta Riggs, a credible person of the neighborhood, declared that I attached the same; and at the same time I summoned the said E. R. Lynn, Superintendent, as garnishee, personally, by handing him a true and attested copy of the within writ, and by making known to him the contents thereof. Jeannette, Pa. Nihil habet as to the within named defendant Paramount Rubber Company of New Jersey, a Foreign Corporation.”

The objection is that the return did not set forth in detail the goods and chattels of the defendant company attached.

The only requisites for the issuing of a foreign attachment against a foreign corporation are: (1) That the defendant is a foreign corporation; (2) the presence of the defendant’s property, real or personal, within the county, at the time of issuing the writ; or as to intangible property, that there is money, etc., of the defendant in the possession of, or due or owing to: it by, some one capable of being summoned as garnishee within the county: Morinelli v. Garin Co., 100 Pa. Superior Ct. 510, 515. Jurisdiction to fasten choses in action by garnishee process depends upon the ability to serve that process upon the debtor of the absent defendant within the jurisdiction of the court issuing the process: Wiener v. American Ins. Co., 224 Pa. 292, 73 Atl. 443; Falk Co. v. Am. Ry. Exp. Co., 79 Pa. Superor Ct. 99, 101. Hence it has never been *539 contended that in attaching moneys, debts, choses in action, etc., of the foreign defendant — as was done by the sheriff in this case — he need do more than attach them in general terms in the hands of the garnishee and summon the garnishee. Whether the garnishee has in his hands money, debts, etc., due the defendant in the attachment, and if so, how much, is determined by the garnishee’s answers to interrogatories, or if disputed, by the jury on the trial of the scire facias.

As to tangible property of the defendant, in the hands of the garnishee, that may be attached and seized by the sheriff under the writ, and there are expressions in the opinions in some of the earlier cases that manual seizure of such property is necessary under the Act of 1836 (June 13, 1836, P. L. 568, secs. 43 to 77, pp. 580-586) but this has been explained or qualified in more recent cases. Thus in Jaffray & Co.’s App., 101 Pa. 583, the sheriff in serving the writ of foreign attachment went to the store of the defendant Weld and in the presence of two credible witnesses, declared that he attached the stock of goods in said store, consisting of calicoes, silks, satins, etc., and made known the contents of the writ to A. W. Byers and G. D. Trawin, who had charge and possession of said store and stock of goods and served it on them as garnishees by reading the writ to them. The Supreme Court reversed the court below and sustained the auditor in holding that the attachment was good and entitled to the fund in court in preference to the assignee for benefit of creditors of the defendant, and execution creditors who issued fieri facias after the attachment was served.

In Longwell v. Hartwell, 164 Pa. 533, 30 Atl. 495, the sheriff in his return to an attachment execution simply stated that he had attached the “goods and chattels, debts, rights and credits and shares of stock *540 of defendant in the garnishee’s hands.” Mr. Justice Mitchell, who had no superior as respects common pleas practice, pointed out in the opinion of the court that the practice in attachment executions by statute followed the law of foreign attachment; and then after discussing at some length the history and practice relating to foreign attachments, summed up in five propositions as follows:

“1. The garnishee failing to appear after service of the attachment, with clause of summons, but no specific attachment of goods or credits, plaintiff will be entitled to a judgment by default. But such judgment will be interlocutory only, and plaintiff cannot liquidate it, or have execution, without first by writ of inquiry or before the prothonotary as the rules of court or the practice in cases of default may prescribe, establishing his claim by evidence of the garnishee’s possession of goods or credits of the defendant; and the measure of his damages will be the value of such goods. This is the present case.
“2. If the attachment is levied upon specific goods, the default may be taken as an admission of the possession of such goods, but the plaintiff must, by writ of appraisement or otherwise, establish their value.
“3. If the attachment is of money, or a debt, and the amount appears in the sheriff’s return the default is an admission of all the requisite facts, and no further evidence or inquiry is necessary. This is Layman v. Beam [6 Wharton 181.]
“4. The proper form of the judgment is for plaintiff against the garnishee, and that the garnishee has in his hands certain goods, effects or credits, to wit, (naming them) of the value, etc., or that the garnishee is indebted to the defendant in the sum of, etc.
“5. Plaintiff’s measure of damages, which determines the amount of the judgment against the garnishee, is the value of the goods attached, of course not exceeding the amount of his judgment, interest, and *541 costs against the defendant. The single exception is when the garnishee neglects or refuses to answer interrogatories, in which case, by the express terms of sect. 57 of the act of 1836, the judgment against him is that he has goods or effects of the defendant sufficient to satisfy the plaintiff’s demand, and execution may issue against him as for his own proper debt.”

The first proposition recognized that there could be a valid attachment, with summons against the garnishee, without a specific seizure or attachment of goods or credits. This was in line with the decision of the Supreme Court in Paxton v. Steckel, 2 Pa.

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Bluebook (online)
168 A. 366, 110 Pa. Super. 536, 1933 Pa. Super. LEXIS 92, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rex-v-paramount-rubber-co-of-new-jersey-pasuperct-1933.