Stevens for use &c. v. Brown.

• Decision Date: 11 November 1882
• Citation: 20 W.Va. 450
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: Stevens for use &c. v. Brown.

20 W.Va. 450

Stevens for use &c.

v.Brown.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted June 8, 1882.

Decided November 11, 1882.

1. The defenses to proceedings by attachment, as well as the pro-

eeediugs themselves, are statutory; and, consequently, the

mode of defense, prescribed by the statute, must be strictly pursued, and no other plea in abatement to an attachment, than the one so prescribed, can be allowed, (p. 457.)

2. A case in which the jurisdiction of the court is sustained, upon a state of facts similar to those in Mahany v. Kephart, 15 W. Va. 609. (p. 458.)

3. In an action at law, where A sues for the use of B, A is the legal plaintiff, and a plea by the defendant, that the transfer or assignment of the debt sued on, by A to B was illegal and without consideration, is immaterial, (p. 458.)

4. It is a principle universally recognized, that laws have no extraterritorial force. Their authority is limited to the territorial jurisdiction of the State or country that enacts them, so far as their right or power of enforcement or claim to obedience is concerned, (p. 459.)

5. Whenever the municipal laws proper of one State are recognized and enforced in another, it is merely by comity of the latter; and this comity is never extended to the laws of remedy, but has been generally regarded as extending to matters ex contractu or such torts as are in violation of natural rights, (p. 460.)

6. Laws relating to contracts and their enforcement, affect either the contract itself or the remedy. The law of the forum governs as regards the remedy in the enforcement of contracts, and the lex loci contractus as regards their interpretation and validity, (p. 4(30.)

7. Exemption laws pertain to the remedy and depend upon the law of the forum and not upon the lex loci for their enforcement, (p. 401.)

8. The citizens of our sister States have, by the Constitution of the United States, the same privileges with our own citizens, and any one of them who has availed himself of the legal remedies furnished by our laws, to secure the payment of a debt due him, has the same claim to the assistance of our courts that one of our own citizens would have. (p. 461.)

9. The courts of this State will not enforce the statutory penalties of another State, (p. 461.)

10. A citizen of the State of Ohio, having a valid debt against another citizen of that State, which can not be collected by legal process there by reason of the exemption laws of that State, and which laws make it a misdemeanor for such creditor to assign, transfer, or send out of the State, such debt for the purpose of having it collected by proceedings in attachment in courts outside of that State, with intent to deprive such resident debtor of personal earnings so exempt, when the person or corporation owing the money intended to be attached is within the jurisdiction of said State, has a right to bring an action and attach such earnings for such debt in the courts of this State, when the garnishee is a domestic corporation of this State, and the attachment is served on such garnishee in the county where the action is brought, notwithstanding such creditor may have sent the claim to this State and instituted his action here for the purpose of evading the exemption laws of the State of Ohio, (p. 461.)

11. The courts of this State will not, through respect or comity to a sister State, recognize or enforce the exemption laws of such State, (p. 461.)

12. Where the court and not a jury tries the case, and the evidence is certified, the Appellate Court will not reverse the judgment because the trial court heard improper evidence, unless all the evidence is certified, and it affirmatively appears that there is not sufficient proper and competent evidence to sustain the judgment, (p. 463.)

"Writ of error and supersedeas to a judgment of the municipal court of Wheeling, rendered on the 5th day ot July, 1881, in an action at law in the said court then pending, wherein J. E. Stevens who sues for the use of G. O. Smith, was plaintiff, and F. II. Brown and Norris II. Brown were defendants, allowed upon the petition of said Norris II. Brown.

Hon. Gibson L. Cranmer, judge of the municipal court of Wheeling, rendered the judgment complained of.

The facts ot the ease are fully stated in the opinion of the Court.

Robert White and R. G. Barr for plaintiff in error, cited the following authorities: Acts 1872-3 eh. 226 § 139; 10 W. Va. 130; 22 Graft.; 28 Ala. 514; 32 Ala, 30; 27 Ala. 269; 2 Ind. 483; 7 Ind. 132; 31 Me. 247; 5 liar. & J. 183; 5 Mass. 286; 17.Mass. 268; 5 Mass. 395; 4 N.H. 285; 13 Allen 87; 4 Minn. 278; 7 Mo. 585; 5 N H. 196; 29 N, H. 264; 30 X. II. 540; 4 S. & R. 159; 1 Binn. 118; 4 Dallas 298; 6 Binn. 321; 4 Hump. 199; 17 Ver. 105; 21 Ver. 9; 14 O. St. 331; 1 Otto. 406; Sto. Conf of Laws, § 262; 24 la. 412; 13 Peters 65; 14 How. 586; 47 Md. 204; Sto. Conf Laws § 582 (b); 2 W. Va. 83; 11 Wheat. 361, 371; 2 Bing. 202, 211; 3 H. & M. 59; Matth. Dig. 422; 14 Ves. 88; 5 Cranch. 358; Augusta v. JEarle, 13 Pet.; 53 Md. 33; 13 W. Va. 609.

No appearance for defendant in error.

Snyder, Judge, announced the opinion of the Court:

This is an appeal from a judgment of the municipal court of Wheeling, rendered on the 5th day of July, 1881, in an action of debt, brought by J. E. Stevens for the use of G. O. Smith against Norris II. Brown, on the 30th day of September, 1880. The action is founded on the judgment of a justice, rendered August 4, 1880, in Newark township, in Licking county and State of Ohio, for one hundred and fifty dol- lars and six cents and five dollars and sixty cents costs. Two attachments issued in the case one September 30, 1880, and the other January 13, 1881 and were served in Ohio county on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company as garnishee and creditor of the defendant. The said company appeared and answered each of said attachments and admitted an aggregate indebtedness to the defendant of one hundred and sixty-six dollars and seventy cents, for which the court also gave judgment against it in part satisfaction of the aforesaid judgment against the defendant Brown. The defendant Brown demurred to the plaintiff's declaration, also, tendered three pleas in abatement to said attachments and four pleas to the action, all of which pleas were in writing and sworn to by the defendant. The plaintiff joined in said demurrer and objected to the filing ot said pleas; the court overruled the demurrer, rejected said pleas and refused to permit them or an)' of them to be filed. The defendant then pleaded nut tiel record, to which the plaintiff replied generally; and defendant also moved the court to quash the said attachments, which motion the court overruled; and therefore the court having seen and inspected the record of the alleged judgment in the declaration mentioned, and having fully heard the evidence, was of opinion that there was such record as is in the plaintiff's declaration mentioned, and gave judgment for one hundred and sixty-three dollars and ninety-one cents and costs against the defendant, Brown, and also on the attachments as before stated. The defendant, Brown, filed two bills of exceptions, which are made parts of the record. The first sets out the seven pleas in writing which the court rejected and shows, that the defendant excepted to the judgment of the court rejecting the said pleas; and the second contains certain depositions read by the plaintiff to prove the jurisdiction of the justice who rendered the judgment in the plaintiff's declaration mentioned, and tending to prove that said justice had such jurisdiction, that there had been personal service on the defendant, and that the proceedings of the said justice were authorized by the laws of the State of Ohio and were regular and in due form. It also shows that the defendant objected to the reading of said depositions on the trial, upon the ground that they were irrelevant and improper testimony under the pleadings in the case, that the court overruled said objection and the defendant excepted.

The said written pleas of the defendant, set out in his first bill of exceptions, are quite elaborate and state the facts relied on as his defence in various forms and are evidently intended to present his defence, both to the attachments and the action, in all its phases, so as to avoid any technical objection and thus have the case disposed of on its merits. These pleas, having been rejected by the court, the allegations therein, so far as properly pleaded, must in this Court betaken as true, I do not deem it necessary to give said pleas separately, as the questions presented to this Court can be fully understood from a statement of the facts alleged therein which are in substance as follows:

That the defendant, Brown, was at the time this action was instituted, and had been for more than three years prior thereto, a resident and citizen of the county of Licking in the State of Ohio, and for all that time was an employee of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, a corporation doing business in said county under the laws of said State of Ohio; that for wages earned by, and payable to, said defendant, in said State, the said company was indebted to him in the sum of-dollars when this action was brought, and that he was then the head of a family, living with him in said State, during the time aforesaid which was and still is under his care and support; that said wages were necessary for the support of himself and his said family, and were then and still are by the laws of said State of Ohio exempt from levy or distress for the payment of the judgment in the plaintiff's declaration mentioned; that the plaintiff, J. E. Stevens, was at the time this action was brought and for more than three years prior thereto a citizen and resident of said State of Ohio, and at that time and for a long time previous thereto it was contrary to the laws of said State, and under said laws a misdemeanor, to send said...