B. F. Huntley Furniture Co. v. Parker

• Decision Date: 26 June 1935
• Citation: 291 Mass. 339,196 N.E. 925
• Parties: B. F. HUNTLEY FURNITURE CO. v. PARKER et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

291 Mass. 339

196 N.E. 925

B. F. HUNTLEY FURNITURE CO. v. PARKER et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

June 26, 1935

Exceptions from Supreme Judicial Court, Suffolk County.

Petition by the B. F. Huntley Furniture Company for writ of mandamus to compel acceptance by Philip S. Parker and others of an application by a judgment creditor for supplementary process against a corporation. Respondent's demurrer sustained, and petitioner brings exceptions.

Exceptions overruled.

H Singer, of Boston, for petitioner.

RUGG Chief Justice.

This is a petition for a writ of mandamus to compel the acceptance by the respondents, the judge and clerk of the Municipal Court of Brookline, of an application by a judgment creditor for supplementary process against a corporation organized under the laws of this Commonwealth against which the petitioner has recovered a judgment. The demurrer of the respondents on the ground that the petition set out no cause for relief was sustained. The petitioner excepted.

The question to be decided is whether the provisions of St. 1927 c. 334, § 2, now embodied in G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 224, §§ 6 to 30, are applicable to corporations who are judgment debtors. The title of said chapter 334 was ‘ An Act to Revise the Poor Debtor Law by Providing for Supplementary Proceedings in Civil Actions.’ That chapter in substance and effect superseded the poor debtor law as it had existed for many years. The poor debtor statutes were designed to regulate and ameliorate the severity of the common law right of a creditor to arrest and imprison his debtor until the debt was paid. Manifestly the exercise of that right was limited to debtors who had bodies capable of being seized and cast into prison. In the nature of things it could not apply to corporations as debtors. Without tracing the history of the poor debtor statutes of this Commonwealth in detail, it is plain that until the enactment of said chapter 334, they could not by any reasonable construction have been held to embrace debtors who were corporations. Commonwealth v. Badlam, 9 Pick. 362; Frost's Case, 127 Mass. 550, 554; Brown's Case, 173 Mass. 498, 53 N.E. 998; Simon v. Justices of Municipal Court, 224 Mass. 122, 112 N.E. 608; Howard v. Roach, 226 Mass. 80, 115 N.E. 289; Root v. MacDonald, 260 Mass. 344, 355, 157 N.E. 684, 54 A.L.R. 1422. There was a substantial sentiment among those best qualified to express an opinion to the effect that procedure under the poor debtor law as developed by statutes worked considerable hardship to debtors without affording the relief intended both for creditors and for debtors. There was agitation covering a period of several years for a modification of the poor debtor laws in order to remedy the existing unfortunate results permissible under them. The subject was considered in the second and final report of the Judicature Commission made in January, 1921, pages 48 to 51, wherein is reprinted a statement quoted from the report of the Municipal Court of the City of Boston made in 1916. The Judicature Commission suggested improvements in the statutes ‘ to provide not only protection to the creditor in his right to payment, but reasonable protection to the debtor and those dependent upon him from oppression by the creditor.’ There is nothing, so far as we are aware, in extraneous reports or proceedings to indicate a desire or purpose to extend the scope of the poor debtor law so as to embrace corporations...