Haley v. Reid

• Decision Date: 31 August 1854
• Docket Number: No. 43.,43.
• Citation: Haley v. Reid, 16 Ga. 437 (Ga. 1854)
• Parties: John J. Haley, et al. plaintiffs in error. vs. John B. Reid, defendant.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

16 Ga. 437

John J. Haley, et al. plaintiffs in error. vs. John B. Reid, defendant.

No. 43.

Supreme Court of the State of Georgia

AUGUST TERM, 1854.

Attachment, in Spalding Superior Court.Decided by Judge Stark, May Term 1854.

John B. Reid had sued out an attachment against John J. Haley and David S. Mills; which attachment had been levied by the Sheriff, on stock of defendant in the Griffin and West Point Plank-road Company; the levy being made by entry to that effect, on the attachment by the Sheriff.At the term to which the attachment was returnable, the Counsel for defendants moved to dismiss it on several grounds, the only one of which necessary to be stated was, that an attachment cannot, under the laws of this State, be levied on stock of an incorporated company.

The Court over-ruled the motion, and defendants excepted.

Hall & Carey; Green; Martin, for plaintiffs in error.

McCune, for defendant.

By the Court.—Benning, J., delivering the opinion.

Can an attachment, against a stockholder in a corporation, be "served and levied" on the stock of the stockholder, in the corporation?This is the only question which it is necessary to decide in this case.

The attachment, in this case, was not served by summons of garnishment—by a summons of garnishment treating the corporation as the debtor of the defendants in the attachment, for so much stock held in the corporation by the defendants.I do not mean to say that the attachment might have been served in that way.I express no opinion, as to whether such a garnishment would lie, in such a case, or not.It the case, however, as it is, attachment by the garnishment mode was notattempted.The Sheriff\'s return is, "I have levied the within attachment, on one hundred shares in the Griffin and West Point Plank-road Company.

May an attachment be thus levied on the debtor's stock in a corporation?

The attachment Act of 1799, makes it the duty of the officer, who is to execute the attachment, "to serve and levy the same upon the estate, both real and personal, of such debtor".

And the nineteenth section in the charter of the Griffin and West Point Plank-road Company, declares, "That the shares in the stock of said company shall be deemed personal property, and may be transferred as shall be prescribed by the by-laws of such company".(Pamph. Acts of 1849, 231.)

As to the stock, then, in this particular corporation, it, at least, is to be deemed personal property.

Still, although personal property, is it subject to attachment?Attachment becomes a means of transferring the property attached.That property, first or last, has to be sold to satisfy the attachment.But for the transfer of this sort of personal property, this stock, in this corporation, another mode is, by the charter itself, provided, namely: such a mode as may have been prescribed "by the by-laws of such company".And what reason is there why, in the interpretation of these words of the charter, the maxim, inclusio unius exclusio alterius, should not apply?I know of none.

Interpreted by this maxim, this part of the charter repeals the Act of 1799 if, indeed that Act, itself, intended to make stock of this kind subject to be attached, as this stock was attached.

But did that Act intend to make such stock, so subject, to be attached?

The words of that Act, as we have seen, are "the estate, both real and personal"—the attachment is to be levied on "the estate both real and personal".This Act was passed on the 18th of February, 1799.(Marb. and Craw.Dig. 41.)

Two days before an Act in pari materia, having in it the same words, had been passed by...