Woodhull v. Wagner

30 F. Cas. 494

This text of 30 F. Cas. 494 (Woodhull v. Wagner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Woodhull v. Wagner, 30 F. Cas. 494 (circtdpa 1831).

Opinion

BALDWIN, Circuit Justice.

The statement of the case agreed on by the parties, presents only one question for the consideration of the court, which is,. whether the defendant’s discharge under the insolvent laws of Pennsylvania, entitles him to be discharged from the*arrest made under a capias ad satisfaciendum, issued from this court in execution of a judgment obtained against him eleven ■ months before his discharge. The power of the states of this union to pass •bankrupt or insolvent laws, and the effect of the exemption of the person of the debtor, or property acquired after the discharge, •have been the subject of much discussion and difference of opinion. In the supreme court, they have been so fully examined by counsel and the judges, as to make it necessary only to state the result of such cases as bear upon the present application.

In Sturges v. Orowninshield, 4 Wheat. [17 U. S.] 122, 91, it was decided: 1st. That a state had a right to pass a bankrupt law, provided there was no act of congress in force establishing a uniform system of bankruptcy, conflicting with such state law; and provided it did not impair the obligation of a contract, within the tenth section of the first article of the constitution; 2d. That such state law, liberating the person of the debtor, and discharging' him from liability on contracts made previously to the law, was unconstitutional and void, so far as it discharged the contract, or attempted to do so; but, 3d. That it was valid so far as it discharged the person of the debtor from confinement, as imprisonment was merely a remedy to enforce the obligation of the contract, but no part of the contract itself, a release from it did not impair the obligation. [Sturges v. Orowninshield] Id. 200, 201. Though the court, in the latter part of their opinion (Id. 207), confine it to the second point, yet the first and third having been considered, and their judgment exercised on them, it has always been understood (and so we feel it our duty to view it), that the law is settled on these points, according to the reasoning of the court, if not their direct decision. The same principle on the third point was affirmed in Mason v. Haile, 12 Wheat. [25 U. S.] 370, which was decided independently of any considerations arising from the locality of the contract or the parties. In that case the court declared, that a state law abolishing imprisonment for debt, would be valid as a measure regulated by the state legislature, acting on the remedy, and that in part only, and* repeat the doctrine asserted in Sturges v. Orowninshield, 4 Wheat. [17 U. S.] 378.

In M’Millan v. M’Neill, Id. 209, the court are said to have declared that the circumstance of the state law, under which the debt was attempted to be discharged, having been passed before the debt was contracted, made no difference in the application of the principle; and in Farmers’ Bank v. Smith, 6 Wheat. [19 U. S.] 131, they decided that the fact of both parties being citizens of Pennsylvania when the contract was made, made no difference between that and former cases.

From the opinion of all the judges in Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. [25 U. S.] 213, 333, it seems that the point decided in M’Mil-lan v. M’Neill [supra] was not correctly stated in the report, and that it was not intended to settle the question of the effect of the law upon contracts made subsequent to its passage. The question remained open till the case of Saunders v. Ogden, in which four of the judges gave their opinions that the contract could be discharged by a state law passed before the contract was made; putting the case on the distinction between bankrupt or insolvent laws which were retrospective, and those which were prospective in their operation. But these opinions led to no final judgment on this point, which in strictness may therefore be considered as not having been adjudicated, though it was the deliberate opinion of a majority of the court; but this point does not arise here, and it is therefore not necessary to the decision of this motion to notice it further. Another point of more immediate application arose in that case. The suit was brought on a bill drawn by Jordon in Kentucky, on Ogden, a citizen of New York, resident there, and accepted by him in favour of Saunders, a citizen of Kentucky. One of the judges who composed the majority on the first question, being of opinion that a discharge under the law of New York, was void as to a citizen of Kentucky, four judges concurred in giving judgment for the plaintiff, on the ground of the invalidity of the law. [Mason v. Haile] 12 Wheat. [25 ü. S.] 309. Judge Johnson was the only judge who gave an opinion on the second point, the three who concurred with him on the first dissented on this, the three who dissented on the first assented to the judgment which was entered for the defendant in error, but without assigning any reasons beyond those given in [496]*496tlieir dissenting opinion on the first question. If the case of Ogden v. Saunders had turned upon the mere point of citizenship of the plaintiff, it would be difficult to say what was the direct judgment of the.court. Three judges thought the law of New York was valid, having been passed before the debt was contracted, and that it operated on the case, the contract having been made and to be executed there. Three gave no opinion on the locality; it was not necessary to do so, as they thought the plaintiff entitled to judgment on the first point. Thus considered, this ease, standing by itself, directly adjudicates no definite question involved in the one now under hearing, as we are not informed whether the three judges who concurred with Judge Johnson in rendering judgment against the party claiming under the law, did it for the reasons assigned by them in their dissenting opinion on the first point, or those assigned by him on the second. No question arises here as to the right of the plaintiff to all remedies against the defendant’s property. The law under which he has been discharged is not unconstitutional, as it attempts to discharge only the person. The only doubts are: (1) as to the effect of a discharge on a debt contracted in New York; (2) with a citizen of that state; (3) on process issued from this court All the judges, in Ogden v. Saunders, stated that the point decided in M’Millan v. M’Neill was, that a discharge of the defendant under a law of Louisiana, could not discharge or operate on a contract made and to be executed in South Carolina, where both parties then resided. Thus affirming individually, if not in their collective judgment, the principle then settled. In several cases preceding that of M’Millan v. M’Neill, as well as in that, the supreme court have declared that the discharge by the bankrupt laws of a foreign country was no bar to an action brought on a contract made in this. [Barr v. Gratz] 4 Wheat. [17 U. S.] 213; [M’Ilvaine v. Coxe] 2 Cranch [6 U. S.] 298, 302; Robertson’s Adm’rs v. Bank of Georgetown, January term, 1831 [unreported]; [Ogden v. Saunders] 12 Wheat. [25 U. S.] 358 et seq.

In Buckner v. Findley, 2 Pet. [27 U. S.] 580, the court declared that “for all national purposes embraced by the federal constitution, the states and the citizens thereof are all united under the same sovereign authority, and governed by the same laws. In all other respects the states are necessarily foreign to and independent of each other; their constitution and forms of government being, although republican, altogether different, as are their laws and institutions.” Id. 590. This principle appears to be directly applicable to the laws of the states, discharging the persons and future acquisitions of debtors.

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30 F. Cas. 494, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/woodhull-v-wagner-circtdpa-1831.