Cline v. Credit Bureau of Santa Clara Valley

Citation83 Cal.Rptr. 669,1 Cal.3d 908,464 P.2d 125
Decision Date30 January 1970
Docket NumberS.F. 22679
CourtUnited States State Supreme Court (California)
Parties, 464 P.2d 125 Bill CLINE, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. CREDIT BUREAU OF SANTA CLARA VALLEY et al., Defendants and Respondents.

William F. McCabe, Gilroy, Stephen Z. Meyers and Lucy K. McCabe, Gilroy, for plaintiff and appellant.

Dahl, Hefner, Stark & Marois and John D. Bessey, Sacramento, for defendants and respondents.

BURKE, Justice.

This case also involves the validity of California's prejudgment wage garnishment procedure. In plaintiff's complaint (amended) seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, he alleges that in an action filed against him seeking to recover some $295 allegedly owing, attachment of his wages at his place of employment was threatened in order to coerce him into paying; that if the wages are attached plaintiff and his family will be forced to exist at an income level below the minimum subsistence income necessary to support plaintiff's family, all before plaintiff had had an opportunity to be heard on the merits of the claims against him. Plaintiff prays judgment declaring California's prejudgment wage garnishment law unconstitutional; he also seeks prohibition and injunctive relief against issuance of an attachment writ. The trial court dismissed plaintiff's complant on the ground that it failed to state a cause of action, and this appeal by plaintiff followed.

Thereafter Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U.S. 337, 89 S.Ct. 1820, 23 L.Ed. 349, was decided by the United States Supreme Court. As concluded in McCallop v. Carberry, Cal., 83 Cal.Rptr. 666, 464 P.2d 122, the prejudgment wage garnishment procedure attacked by plaintiff must be ruled invalid under the rationale of Sniadach. Accordingly, the judgment appealed from is reversed.

TRAYNOR, C.J., and McCOMB, PETERS, TOBRINER, MOSK, and SULLIVAN, JJ., concur.

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19 cases
  • Randone v. Appellate Department
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court (California)
    • August 26, 1971
    ...question. In McCallop v. Carberry (1970) 1 Cal.3d 903, 83 Cal.Rptr. 666, 464 P.2d 122 and Cline v. Credit Bureau of Santa Clara Valley (1970) 1 Cal.3d 908, 83 Cal.Rptr. 669, 464 P.2d 125, we examined the California wage garnishment statutes in light of Sniadach and, although the California ......
  • People ex rel. Becerra v. Superior Court of Riverside Cnty.
    • United States
    • California Court of Appeals
    • November 27, 2018
    ...( Ibid . ; see also McCallop v. Carberry (1970) 1 Cal.3d 903, 83 Cal.Rptr. 666, 464 P.2d 122 ; Cline v. Credit Bureau of Santa Clara Valley (1970) 1 Cal.3d 908, 83 Cal.Rptr. 669, 464 P.2d 125.)Third, the majority wrongly characterizes this case as one where the plaintiffs have been determin......
  • Connolly Development, Inc. v. Superior Court
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Court (California)
    • August 31, 1976
    ...Thus in 1970 in McCallop v. Carberry (1970) 1 Cal.3d 903, 83 Cal.Rptr. 666, 464 P.2d 122, and Cline v. Credit Bureau of Santa Clara Valley (1970) 1 Cal.3d 908, 83 Cal.Rptr. 669, 464 P.2d 125, we invalidated on similar due process grounds the California wage garnishment law because the legis......
  • O. G. Sansone Co. v. Department of Transportation
    • United States
    • California Court of Appeals
    • February 19, 1976
    ...S.Ct. 1820, 23 L.Ed.2d 349; McCallop v. Carberry, 1 Cal.3d 903, 83 Cal.Rptr. 666, 464 P.2d 122; and Cline v. Credit Bureau of Santa Clara Valley, 1 Cal.3d 908, 83 Cal.Rptr. 669, 464 P.2d 125, wage garnishment; Blair v. Pitchess, 5 Cal.3d 258, 96 Cal.Rptr. 42, 486 P.2d 1242, claim and delive......
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