Bell v. Indian Live-Stock Co.

• Decision Date: 19 March 1889
• Citation: 11 S.W. 344
• Parties: BELL <I>et al.</I> <I>v.</I> INDIAN LIVE-STOCK CO.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

11 S.W. 344

BELL et al.v.

INDIAN LIVE-STOCK CO.

Supreme Court of Texas.

March 19, 1889.

Commissioners' decision. Appeal from district court, Cooke county.

Action by Bell & Gardner against J. P. Addington, Indian Live-Stock Company, garnishee. Plaintiffs appeal.

Davis & Garnett, for appellants. C. C. Potter, for appellee.

ACKER, J.

J. P. Addington was indebted to appellants, for which they brought suit and garnished appellee. The garnishee answered that Addington was in its employ as its manager for the compensation of $200 per month; that he was a non-resident; that there was to his credit on the books of appellee the sum of $624, due to him as current wages for personal service; and that the money was not subject to garnishment under the laws of this state. Appellants controverted the answer upon the following grounds: (1) That Addington, being a nonresident, was not entitled to the benefits of the laws of this state which exempt from garnishment current wages for personal service; (2) that the $624 in the hands of the garnishee to the credit of Addington were not current wages for personal service, within the meaning of our constitution and statutes. The trial court held the money exempt, and discharged the garnishee on its answer. It was proven on the trial that Addington owned $150,000 of the stock of appellee company, which was pledged for its full value. The two questions involved in the case are properly presented here for our determination:

1. Are current wages due to a non-resident for personal service subject to garnishment in this state?

2. Is the sum of $624 due by a corporation to one of its stockholders on a contract to pay the stockholder $200 per month for his services as manager of the company "current wages for personal service" within the meaning of the constitution and laws of this state?

The constitution (article 16, § 28,) provides that "no current wages for personal service shall ever be subject to garnishment." Substantially the same language is found in article 218 of our Revised Statutes, and it is there provided that "where it appears upon the trial that the garnishee is indebted to the defendant for such current wages, the garnishee shall nevertheless be discharged as to such indebtedness." Clause 16, art. 2335, Rev. St., which article enumerates the articles of personal property exempt from forced sale, is as follows: "(16) All current wages for personal services." The foregoing are the only provisions of our laws, organic or statutory, bearing upon the questions in this case. It will be observed that none of these, in terms or by necessary implication, are limited in their application to citizens or residents of this state. Such provisions affect the remedy merely, and it seems reasonable to us that the law of the forum should apply in determining the rights of the parties. We are to interpret these provisions of our laws in accordance with the obvious intent of those who enacted them, and that intent is to be arrived at by giving to the language employed its ordinary significance. We are to declare what the law is, without expanding or contracting its purview The constitution declares that no current wages for personal service shall ever be subject to garnishment, and the statute reiterates this declaration. We discover nothing in the context or the language used to support the view contended for by appellants, that these provisions of our laws were designed for the benefit and protection of residents of this state only. It seems to us that the context and the language used tend very strongly to support the converse of the proposition insisted upon by appellants. Article 183 of the Revised Statutes authorizes the issuance of the writ of garnishment when an original attachment has been sued out, and article 152 authorizes the writ of attachment to issue upon the ground that the defendant is a nonresident. The exemption laws in force prior to the adoption of the present constitution expressly limited their application to citizens or residents of this state. The convention that framed the present constitution, and the legislature that enacted the present exemption laws, must have had some purpose in omitting the limitation contained in the previous laws, and we are unable to conceive any reason for the change other than the design that the benefits of these laws should inure to non-residents as well as to the citizens of our state.

We do not consider it necessary to discuss the effect which the adoption of the Fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States had with reference to state statutes discriminating in favor of its own citizens, and against citizens of other states. The laws of several of the American states contain provisions similar in some respects to these provisions of our laws. In the absence of adjudications by our own courts, we look for authority to the decisions of those states where like questions have been determined. In the case of Railroad Co. v. Barron, 83 Ill. 366, the defendant in the original action, whose wages were garnished in the state of Illinois, was a resident of the state of Wisconsin, and claimed the benefits of the following statute: "The wages and services of a defendant, being the head of a family, and residing with the same, to an amount not exceeding twenty-five dollars, shall be exempt from garnishment." It was held that the non-resident was entitled to the exemption. In the case of Lowe v. Stringham, 14 Wis. 244, the debtor being a nonresident, temporarily in that state, in delivering the opinion of the court Judge...