Druid City Hospital Bd. v. Epperson

• Decision Date: 07 December 1979
• Citation: 378 So.2d 696
• Parties: DRUID CITY HOSPITAL BOARD v. Arthur EPPERSON et al. 78-482.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 696

378 So.2d 696

DRUID CITY HOSPITAL BOARD v. Arthur EPPERSON et al.

78-482.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

Dec. 7, 1979.

E. H. Hawkins of Dishuck & Hawkins, Tuscaloosa, for appellant.

Jerry L. Weidler, Montgomery, for appellee George C. Dean.

PER CURIAM.

This is a garnishment case. The sole issue before us is the construction and constitutionality of Code 1975, § 6-6-480 et seq., which create the remedy of garnishment against the wages and salaries of state, county and municipal employees.

Appellant Druid City Hospital Board obtained a default judgment on a promissory note executed in exchange for hospital services against Arthur Epperson, now a district judge, in the amount of $12,029.58. Five years after the entry of the judgment, Druid City filed a process of garnishment in the Circuit Court of Tuscaloosa County, naming Epperson as defendant and appellee Dean, the State Comptroller, as garnishee. Dean denied assent to the garnishment, relying on Code 1975, § 6-6-483, which provides that an official of the State of Alabama who is garnished must "assent and consent" that " . . . judgment may be entered in said case . . .."

Druid City contested the denial of assent, and a hearing was held. Dean testified at the hearing that his office routinely withholds assent in all garnishment proceedings because of the administrative expense they would entail, and that this practice has been followed for at least 25 years. The trial court discharged the process of garnishment, and Druid City appealed.

Appellee Dean contends that garnishment of the salary of a state employee is, in effect, a suit against the state and that § 6-6-480 et seq. are unconstitutional and void under Art. I, § 14 of the Alabama Constitution, which provides "That the State of Alabama shall never be made a defendant in any court of law or equity." In the alternative, he argues that if the statute is constitutional the requirement that the garnishee "assent and consent" to the garnishment vests absolute discretion in the garnishee, who may refuse to consent for any reason or for no reason. Finally, Dean asserts that the administrative expense which allowing garnishments would entail is a good and reasonable cause for denying assent.

It is true that the state is immune from suit, and this immunity cannot be waived by the legislature or by any other state authority. Dunn Construction Co. v. State Board of Adjustment, 234 Ala. 372, 175 So. 383 (1937). Art. I, § 14 of the Constitution not only forbids a suit against the state, but against its officers and agents in their official capacity, when a result favorable to the plaintiff or complainant would directly affect a contract or property right of the state. Southall v. Stricos Corp., 275 Ala. 156, 153 So.2d 234 (1963). This immunity from suit cannot be circumvented by suing a state agency if the substance and effect is a suit against the state. State v. Louis Pizitz Dry Goods Co., 243 Ala. 629, 11 So.2d 342 (1943).

However, four general categories of actions have been held not to come within the prohibition of § 14: 1) actions brought to compel state officials to perform their legal duties; 2) actions brought to enjoin state officials from enforcing an unconstitutional law; 3) actions to compel state officials to perform ministerial acts; and 4) actions brought under the Declaratory Judgment Act seeking construction of a statute and how it should be applied in a given situation. Boaz Nursing Home, Inc. v. Recovery Inns of America, Inc., 289 Ala. 144, 266 So.2d 588 (1972); Aland v. Graham, 287 Ala. 226, 250 So.2d 677 (1971).

Tested by these principles, § 6-6-480 et seq. are not violative of the Constitution. Code 1975, § 6-6-370, defines garnishment as:

" . . . process to reach and subject money or effects of A defendant in attachment, in a judgment or in a pending action commenced in the ordinary form In the possession or under the control of a third person, or debts owing such defendant or liabilities to him on contracts for the delivery of personal property, on contracts for the payment of money which may be discharged by the delivery of personal property or on contracts payable in personal property; and such third person is called the garnishee." (Emphasis Added)

Thus, a creditor may not garnish property which does not belong to the defendant, and garnishment is available only where the garnishee owes the judgment debtor a debt which is due "absolutely" and "without contingency." Sloss v. Glaze, 231 Ala. 234, 164 So. 51 (1935). See also: 29 Ala.L.Rev. 649, Garnishment In Alabama (1978).

Although the general garnishment statute authorizes garnishment of personal effects, debts and contract rights, Code 1975, § 6-6-370, where the state is the garnishee, Code 1975, § 6-6-480, restricts the remedy to the employee's salary. This is defined to exclude court fees, commissions and percentages or allowances of public officers. These restrictions ensure that no property belonging to the state is subject to garnishment, the state being no more than stakeholder in the dispute between the creditor and the defendant in the garnishment proceeding. The fact that the defendant is a state employee does not necessarily implicate property or contract rights of the state.

This reasoning is consistent with the further reflection that an action brought by the employee against the comptroller to recover his or her salary from the state would not be barred by § 14, but would come within one of the four exceptions to the doctrine which are enumerated in Aland v. Graham, supra. In garnishment proceedings, the creditor stands in the debtor's shoes to enforce the debtor's rights against third parties. Since a state employee could recover his salary, once earned, from the state, there is no constitutional prohibition to allowing a creditor's recovery of the employee's salary in satisfaction of a debt on contract reduced to judgment.

Appellee Dean argues that this issue was decided to the contrary in Boaz Nursing Home, Inc. v. Recovery Inns of America, Inc., supra. This argument misconstrues the scope of the Boaz decision. Boaz involved an attempt to garnish state funds earmarked for payment of Medicaid claims and administered by Equitable Life Assurance Society, the nursing home fiscal agent for the Alabama Board of Health, a state agency. In affirming the trial court's action in quashing and dismissing the process of garnishment, this court held that the plaintiff was attempting to indirectly garnish the state by garnishing its agent, Equitable. Not only was the action brought under the general garnishment statute rather than Code 1975, § 6-6-480 et seq., it violated § 14 because:

" . . . the nature of the garnishment and the relief sought here are such that a favorable result for plaintiff would directly affect both the property rights of the State (namely, its money held by Equitable for disbursement, and its contract to indemnify Equitable against loss, thus expending itself on the public treasury and interfering with the public administration of the Medicaid program)." Boaz, supra, 289 Ala. at 148, 266 So.2d at 591.

In holding that the state's interests were directly affected by such a proceeding, the court did not hold that All garnishments in which the state is explicitly or impliedly named a garnishee violate § 14. It simply reiterated the test already developed by the Stricos And Pizitz, supra, line of cases, for determining whether § 14 is violated by any given enactment. Being limited to salaries due government employees, § 6-6-480 et seq. are free from constitutional infirmity in this regard. Whereas Boaz involved a garnishment attempt which, if successful, could have disrupted the administration of the State Medicaid program, no similar danger is posed by garnishment of a state employee's salary.

We turn now to appellees' contention that a state official named as garnishee can refuse to consent to the garnishment for...