Automatic Sprinkler Corp. v. DARLA ENV. SPECIALISTS, 91 C 3602.
| Decision Date | 13 May 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 91 C 3602.,91 C 3602. |
| Citation | 852 F. Supp. 16 |
| Parties | AUTOMATIC SPRINKLER CORPORATION OF AMERICA, A DIVISION OF FIGGIE INTERNATIONAL, INC., Plaintiff/Judgment Creditor, v. DARLA ENVIRONMENTAL SPECIALISTS, INC., and Darla Environmental, Inc., Defendants/Judgment Debtors, v. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION, Third Party Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Joseph R. Marconi, Gerald Theodore Tschura, Johnson & Bell, Ltd., Chicago, IL, for plaintiff.
Steve Mason, U.S. Attorney's Office, Chicago, IL, for General Services Admin., respondent.
The Darla defendants completed some work for the government and GSA has paid them about six and a half million dollars for it and owes another half million ($449,814.88 to be exact). GSA has not paid Darla because it appears to exist no longer, dissolved by the Illinois Secretary of State, and, consequently, has not requested payment. This court enjoined payment of the remainder because Automatic Sprinkler has a claim to the money; a good claim, in fact, to enforce an Ohio state court judgment for half a million dollars ($449,044 and costs, to be exact) in favor of Automatic Sprinkler and against Darla. Automatic Sprinkler asked GSA to pay the Darla money to it. GSA has refused. Automatic Sprinkler wants a court order to force GSA to pay, and GSA responds that it is above it all (or immune as a sovereign, to be exact).
The argument between GSA and Automatic Sprinkler is phrased as an argument over labels. GSA says it is a "party defendant" and thus immune. Automatic Sprinkler says GSA is a "third-party respondent in a supplemental proceeding, to wit, a citation to discover assets." Labels are essential for computer directories and other filing systems but have very little use as reasons for a decision. Sometimes a label serves as a shorthand or symbol for a reason, but that is not so here. The argument here is all label and nothing more. GSA says, in essence, you can look at the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure until you are blue in the face and you will not see the words "Third Party Respondent" anywhere. Automatic Sprinkler rightly says that Rule 69 incorporates state law for enforcement of judgment and Illinois law recognizes "Third Party Respondents." Bank of Aspen v. Fox Cartage, Inc., 141 Ill.App.3d 369, 95 Ill.Dec. 672, 490 N.E.2d 145 (1986). Another, and more important, version of the label argument is this: GSA says Automatic Sprinkler wants the "government's money"; Automatic Sprinkler says it wants "Darla's money."
The question, "Whose money is it?" is not new. In 1846 the Court held that creditors of the crew members of the frigate "U.S.S. Constitution" could not garnish the crew's wages. Buchanan v. Alexander, 45 U.S. (4 How.) 20, 11 L.Ed. 857 (1846). The Court reasoned:
the funds of the government are specifically appropriated to certain national objects, and if such appropriations may be diverted and defeated by State process or otherwise, the functions of the government may be suspended. So long as money remains in the hands of a disbursing officer, it is as much the money of the United States as if it had not been drawn from the treasury. Until paid over by the agent of the government to the person entitled to it, the fund cannot, in any legal sense, be considered a part of his effects. The purser is not the debtor of the seamen.
GSA is the purser here, and the authority of Buchanan seems not to have been impaired by its great age. In Re Joliet-Will County Community Action Agency, 847 F.2d 430, 433 (7th Cir.1988). Buchanan's language can be mined in more than one way. The key sentence might be "so long as the money remains in the hands of a disbursing officer, it is ... the money of the United States." But what about "if appropriations may be diverted ... by State process, ... the functions of government may be suspended"? This is the reason state process is dishonored (or disregarded, if one prefers a less loaded word).
Garnishing seamen's wages is quite likely to have grim effects on the functioning of government. Even where money is due for past work, the crew is a continuing entity on which the government depends for the completion of its cruises. And the public can protect itself by denying credit to sailors.
Here a contractor, with no continuing relationship to the government, or anyone else, has completed all its assigned work. What danger is there to the government's functioning? The answer is none. Of course, there is a risk, approaching certainty, that a win...
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Automatic Sprinkler Corp. of America v. Darla Environmental Specialists Inc.
...that application of Buchanan would work an injustice to a creditor and wondered aloud: "Do I follow rule, or do I follow reason?" 852 F.Supp. 16, 17 (1994). The judge called Buchanan an "anachronism," id. at 18, elected to follow reason, and ordered the United States to pay the creditor. We......