Charles Wilder v. Steam Navigation Company, Limited

• Decision Date: 30 November 1908
• Docket Number: INTER-ISLAND,No. 30,30
• Citation: 15 Ann. Cas. 127,29 S.Ct. 58,211 U.S. 239,53 L.Ed. 164
• Parties: CHARLES T. WILDER, Tax Assessor and Collector of the First Taxation Division of the Territory of Hawaii, Plff. in Err., v. STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY, LIMITED
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

211 U.S. 239

29 S.Ct. 58

53 L.Ed. 164

CHARLES T. WILDER, Tax Assessor and Collector of the First Taxation Division of the Territory of Hawaii, Plff. in Err.,

v INTER-ISLAND STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY, LIMITED.

No. 30.

Submitted October 22, 1908.

Decided November 30, 1908.

Substituted as a party in place of James L. Holt.

Messrs. Charles R. Hemenway and Mason F. Prosser for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. A. Lewis, Jr., and Smith & Lewis for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice Day delivered the opinion of the court:

This case is one of a number of similar cases arising within the territory of Hawaii, and is brought here for the purpose of settling the liability of seamen's wages to seizure after judgment by attachment or proceedings in aid of execution. The Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company, defendant in error, was directed by order and judgment of the district magistrate of Honolulu to pay into court, on account of a judgment rendered in favor of plaintiff in error, against one A. Tullet, the sum of $65. Tullet is a seaman, being master of the steamer Keauhou, plying between ports within the territory. The sum of $65 was due to Tullet from the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company for wages for the months of January and February, 1906. The judgment was recovered against Tullet on September 5, 1905, for the sum of $120.38 and costs. An execution was issued thereon and returned unsatisfied. Upon affidavit being filed an order was issued attaching the sum of $65, due in manner aforesaid from the navigation company to Tullet. The navigation company filed an answer setting forth that Tullet was an American seaman in the employ of the company, and that the money attached was due to Tullet as wages, and, under § 4536 of the Revised Statutes of the United States (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 3082), the same were not subject to arrestment nor attachment, and that the territorial court had no jurisdiction in the premises. The lower court held that the wages could be attached in this manner. This judgment was reversed in the supreme court of Hawaii.

The laws of Hawaii regulating attachments in cases such as are now under consideration authorize proceedings supplementary to execution, as follows:

'Sec. 2118. Attachment of debts, order.—It shall be lawful for a judge of any court upon the ex parte application of such judgment creditor, either before or after such oral examination, and upon affidavit by the judgment creditor or his attorney, stating that judgment has been recovered, and that it is still unsatisfied, and to what amount, and that any other person is indebted to the judgment debtor and is within the jurisdiction, to order that all debts owing or accruing from such third person (hereinafter called the 'garnishee') to the judgment debtor shall be attached to answer the judgment debt; and by the same or any subsequent order it may be ordered that the garnishee shall appear before the judge to show cause why he should not pay the judgment creditor the debt due from him to the judgment debtor, or so much thereof as may be sufficient to satisfy the judgment debt; provided that the judge may, in his discretion, refuse to interfere when, from the smallness of the amount to be recovered, or of the debt sought to be attached, or otherwise, the remedy sought would be worthless or vexatious.'

It was under this section of the Hawaiian statute that the order was made for the payment of the judgment out of the wages due to Tullet, and the question for decision in this case is: Can such an order be made consistently with the maritime law as declared in the Revised Statutes of the United States? The section of the statute construed in the supreme court of Hawaii is 4536, which provides:

'No wages due or accruing to any seaman or apprentice shall be subject to attachment or arrestment from any court; and every payment of wages to a seaman or apprentice shall be valid in law, notwithstanding any previous sale or assignment of wages, or of any attachment, encumbrance, or arrestment thereon; and no assignment or sale of wages, or salvage, made prior to the accruing thereof, shall bind the party making the same, except such advance securities as are authorized by this title.'

This section was first enacted into the statutes of the United States in 1872, and was § 61 of the act of June 7, 1872, entitled 'An Act to Authorize the Appointment of Shipping Commissioners by the Several Circuit Courts of the United States, to Superintend the Shipping and Discharge of Seamen Engaged in Merchant Ships Belonging to the United States, and for the Further Protection of Seamen.' 17 Stat. at L. 262, 276, chap. 322, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 3082. It afterwards became, in the revision of 1874, § 4536 of the Revised Statutes. This section appears to have been copied from § 233 of 17 and 18 Victoria, chap. 104, which act provides:

'No wages due or accruing to any seaman or apprentice shall be subject to attachment or arrestment from any court; and every payment of wages to a seaman or apprentice shall be valid in law, notwithstanding any previous sale or assignment of such wages, or of any attachment, encumbrance, or arrestment thereon; and no assignment or sale of such wages, or of salvage, made prior to the accruing thereof, shall bind the party making the same, and no power of attorney or authority for the receipt of any such wages or salvage shall be irrevocable.'

We have been unable to discover any English case construing this statute, and none has been called to our attention. In Maclachlan on Merchant Shipping, 4th ed., 231, that author states the effect of the statute to be to except seaman's wages from liability to attachment by a judgment creditor, as payment of such wages is valid, notwithstanding any previous sale or assignment thereof, or any attachment, encumbrance, or arrestment thereon. In this country the cases, state and Federal, in which this statute has been under consideration, are not in accord. In Telles v. Lynde, 47 Fed. 912, and The Queen, 93 Fed. 834, the district court in the ninth circuit reached the conclusion that the statute did not prevent the seizure of seamen's wages after judgment upon proceedings in aid of execution, although the seamen's wages were not liable to attachment in advance of judgment.

The question was very fully considered by Judge Benedict in the case of McCarty v. The City of New Bedford, 4 Fed. 818. In that case Judge Benedict held the view that the statute of Victoria 17 and 18, above cited, was but declaratory of the law of England as it theretofore existed, and that, in view of the remedies given in the United States courts in admiralty, and the provisions of the Federal statutes enacted in reference to the recovery and protection of the wages of seamen, there was no jurisdiction in the state courts to garnishee the wages of seamen at the instance of a creditor.

With Judge Benedict's opinion before him, Mr. Justice Gray, then of the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts, in the case of Eddy v. O'Hara, 132 Mass. 56, said that the court, although recognizing the elaborate and forcible argument of Judge Benedict, had not been able to satisfy itself that such an exemption from attachment had even been recognized, except as created or limited by express statutes or ordinances. The learned justice conceded that a determination of that question was not nccessary to the decision then made, because the court held that the trustee in foreign attachment, haveing been compelled by process from the admiralty court to pay the amount of wages, could not be charged again for the same sum. In the subsequent case of White v. Dunn, 134 Mass. 271, the question was directly presented, and the former opinion of Mr. Justice Gray, in 132 Mass. 56, was approved; and it was held that the wages of seamen engaged in the coastwise trade (the act of 1874, 18 Stat. at L. 64, chap. 260, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 3064, being construed to exempt coastwise-trading vessels from the provisions of the act of 1872, which included what is now § 4536) are subject to attachment by the trustee process. The court expressed regret at its inability to agree with the district court of the United States for the southern district of New York, evidently referring to Judge Benedict's opinion above cited, and expressed the opinion that no practical injustice would grow out of the conflict, as the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts had recently held, in Eddy v. O'Hara, supra, that where the wages of seamen had been obliged to be paid by a decree in admiralty, a party could not again be...