Campbell v. Steele

• Decision Date: 05 September 1849
• Parties: WILLIAM H. CAMPBELL and Others, Owners of the Steamboat &#34;Norfolk,&#34; <I>v.</I> R. STEELE & CO.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

11 Pa. 394

WILLIAM H. CAMPBELL and Others, Owners of the Steamboat "Norfolk," v. R. STEELE & CO.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

September 5, 1849.

Sept. 5.

ERROR to the District Court of Allegheny.

Shaler, for the plaintiff in error.—1. The claim of Steele & Co. was merged in the Louisiana judgment: Jones v. Johnson, 3 W. & S. 276.

2. That judgment furnishes us with a full defence, either as in bar, or as evidence: Story's Conflict of the Laws, p. 499, § 598; 2 Kent's Com. Lecture 27, p. 119.

3. That Steele & Co., having pursued Smith to judgment on a joint claim, are barred from action against the other partners.

M'Candless and M'Clure, contrà.—Steele v. Smith, 7 W. & S. 447, is conclusive here.

There is no merger in this case, and the authorities do not sustain the plea of former recovery. The only defendant served in New Orleans was dead, intestate, insolvent, and there was no administrator.

Record of judgment in for. att. is not even primâ facie evidence of indebtedness: 5 Wend. 148; 6 Ib. 447; 1 Wills. 482, 597; 2 Metcalf, 333; 6 Pick. 232.

Part owners of a steamboat are tenants in common, not partners: Knox v. Campbell, 1 Barr, 366. But judgment against one partner is no bar to suit against the others: Act 6 April, 1830; Dunlop, 508; Pamph. L. 1848, p. 536, § 5.

The opinion of this court was delivered by ROGERS, J.

A judgment in foreign attachment, affecting to bind not only the property attached, but the persons of defendants, not citizens of the state, or within its precincts at the time, is to be treated as a nullity by a court in another state which is called on to enforce it by action, even though it would bind the persons of defendants in the courts and by the laws of the state in which it was rendered. This is ruled in Smith v. Steele, reported in 7 W. & S. 447. In cases of foreign attachment, says the Chief Justice (speaking in reference to the judgment now invoked as a bar to this action), heretofore the judgment did not purport to bind the person. Here there is a formal recovery from the defendants, in solido, without privilege on the property attached, and it is, consequently, in personam. The case of Smith v. Steele was an attempt to enforce the judgment in this state, as a judgment against all the parties, although the defendants did not appear, either personally or by attorney, and never were within the jurisdiction of the court of Louisiana. This we refused to do, for reasons which appeared to us unanswerable, deciding that, so far as regards any remedy here, the judgment in Louisiana was null and void. It is now contended by the same parties, that, although a nullity, it is good in bar to a suit brought on the original contract. It is insisted that the plaintiff's claim is merged in the Louisiana judgment;...