Bush v. Mathes
| Decision Date | 19 February 1932 |
| Docket Number | No. 21129.,21129. |
| Citation | 347 Ill. 371,179 N.E. 866 |
| Parties | BUSH v. MATHES. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Action by Jefferson S. Bush against Nathan Mathes. Judgment for plaintiff was reversed by the Appellate Court, and plaintiff appeals on certificate of importance.
Affirmed.
Appeal from Appellate Court, Fourth District, on Appeal from Circuit Court, Madison County; Jesse R. Brown, Judge.
Terry, Gueltig & Powell, of Edwardsville, for appellant.
M. R. Sullivan, of Granite City, for appellee.
The Appellate Court for the Fourth District reversed, without remandment, a judgment of the circuit court of Madison county for $1,000 in favor of Jefferson S. Bush against Nathan Mathes, doing business as Tri-City Finance Company, and granted a certificate of importance and an appeal to this court.
The declaration consisted of a single count in case, alleging that the plaintiff was employed as a car inspector by the Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railway Company and was an honest, hard-working, and good citizen of deservedly good credit and standing among his employers, neighbors, and friends, whereby he daily acquired gains and profits by the wages earned, yet the defendant, well knowing the premises, but wickely contriving and maliciously intending to injure him in his good name and credit, and knowing the policy of the railway company to be not to employ or continue in its employment any person who does not pay his honest debts, but permits his wages to be garnished, on March 17, 1930, made and served on the railway company a paper commonly known as a demand in garnishment, demanding of the company more than $200 out of moneys then due or to become due to the plaintiff as wages, pursuant to the law in regard to garnishment, and thereby notified the railway company, as the employer of the plaintiff, that pursuant to the service of the demand it was required to hold all moneys due or earned by the plaintiff on said date, and for five days thereafter, subject to garnishment; that though the defendant had formerly brought a suit against the plaintiff no judgment had ever been entered against him in any such suit, nor had any execution upon any such purported judgment ever been issued or served upon him, but all suits brought by the defendant against him had terminated in favor of the plaintiff; that, notwithstanding the service of the demand in garnishment, no garnishment suit was ever commenced or judgment therein ever entered in favor of the defendant against the plaintiff; that upon service of the demand on the railway company the wages of the plaintiff were held and retained by the employer and the plaintiff was told by his employer that he would not be permitted to work during the five days mentioned in the notice therein, and he was thereupon suspended or discharged, subject to reinstatement or investigationof the claim of the defendant against him; that by reason of the premises he was greatly injured in his good name and credit and was depreived of great gains and profits and the opportunity to continue in his employment unmolested, and was compelled to suffer humiliation as well as expense in obtaining advice as to his rights and means of preventing the annoyance, and sustained damages, direct and exemplary, of $5,000. A demurrer by the defendant was overruled, and he pleaded the general issue.
Section 14 of the Garnishment Act, as amended in 1925 (Laws of 1925, p. 427), provides: ‘Before bringing suit a demand in writing shall be served upon the employer and upon the employee for the excess above the amount herein exempted.’ The instrument here relied on by the plaintiff as the demand in garnishment, the service of which caused the damage for which he sued, was put in evidence. It was a printed form, having at the head the words, ‘Demand in garnishment, act of 1901,’ was dated March 17, 1930, and was addressed to ‘Mr. Jefferson S. Bush, wage earner, and Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railway Company, employer.’ Following the date and address the instrument proceeded: ‘_____ hereby demand of you the sum of $200, plus interest from September 1, 1928, out of moneys now due or which may become due to _____ as wages in excess of legal exemption,’ etc. It was signed, ‘Tri-City Finance Company.’ The demand was prepared by Mathes and signed by him in his trade-name. The demand was of Bush, wage-earner, and the railway company, employer. It was a demand for the sum of $200, plus interest, out of the unexempt wages of ‘_____.’ Clearly it did not concern the appellant's wages, and no damage could have resulted to the appellant because of it.
The so-called demand in...
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Juneau Spruce Corp. v. INTERNATIONAL L. & W. UNION
...and signed by the Clerk. If Wile v. Cohn, supra, cannot be distinguished from the case at bar, we must disagree with it. Bush v. Mathes, 1932, 347 Ill. 371, 179 N.E. 866, is distinguishable as a case concerning prior details of a garnishee 13 "1. * * * may request the court to insert in the......
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Ammons v. Jet Credit Sales, Inc.
...it may be well to determine if the garnishment demand, which was not issued out of a court, was legal process at all. In Bush v. Mathes, 347 Ill. 371, 179 N.E. 866, our Supreme Court stated that, 'The demand is not process, * * *.' In the instant case it was not a necessary step in acquirin......
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