Hathorn v. Robinson

• Decision Date: 18 December 1903
• Citation: 56 A. 1057,98 Me. 334
• Parties: HATHORN v. ROBINSON et al.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

56 A. 1057

98 Me. 334

HATHORN

v. ROBINSON et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Dec. 18, 1903.

(Official.)

Appeal from Supreme Judicial Court, Somerset County, in Equity.

Bill by Eastman Hathorn against George W. Robinson and another. Decree for defendants, and plaintiff appeals. Reversed.

Argued before WISWELL, C. J., and EMERY, WHITEHOUSE, STROUT, POWERS, PEABODY, and SPEAR, JJ.

Harvey D. Eaton, for appellant S. J. & L L. Walton, for appellees.

SPEAR, J. This is a bill in equity, and comes up on appeal by the plaintiff. The facts and decree as found below by the justice in the first instance are as follows:

"I find that on the 2d day of February, 1900, the plaintiff was a judgment creditor of the defendant's testate, John Robinson; that at a disclosure hearing upon said judgment, before a disclosure commissioner, on the same day, the said John Robinson disclosed that he had about seven hundred dollars in cash in his pocket, but which he claimed could not, under the statutes of this state, be attached or seized, or in any way applied in payment of the judgment against his will; that the complainant asserted his right to have said money turned over to him, and applied in part satisfaction of said judgment; that thereupon the parties entered into the following written agreement:

"'Skowhegan, Maine, February 2, 1901.

"'It is hereby agreed by and between Eastman Hathorn of Athens and John Robinson of Madison that said Robinson shall deposit in the hands of his attorney S. J. Walton the sum of five hundred dollars which be received as insurance from the United Order of the Golden Cross of the World, a fraternal beneficiary organization, and said Hathorn is to bring suit through his attorney against said Robinson as principal defendant and said Walton as trustee of said fund, said arrangement is made for the purpose of testing said Hathorn's right to said fund and it is understood and agreed that all provisions of law shall be available in defense thereof the same as though said fund had remained in the hands of said Robinson.

"'This agreement grows out of a disclosure process and is to provide for a legal settlement of the questions arising in said process.

"'John Robinson.

"'Eastman Hathorn.'

"I further find, in pursuance of said agreement said Robinson did then and there deposit said five hundred dollars with said Walton; that thereupon the complainant caused a trustee process to issue, which declared on said judgment, and in which he was plaintiff, the said Robinson was defendant, and the said Walton was named as trustee; that said Robinson and said Walton signed a written acknowledgment of service, which was indorsed upon the writ and that no other service of the writ was made, nor was it ever placed in the hands of an officer for service.

"I further find that after due proceedings had, first at nisi prius, and later in the law court upon the trustee's exceptions, it was ultimately decided by the law court that said Walton should be charged as trustee for the five hundred dollars, less his costs, and the defendant's contentions in law were overruled, as appears by the opinion of the court in Hathorn v. Robinson, 96 Me. 33, 51 Atl. 236, and by the mandate of the court therein; and that the order of the law court overruling the trustee's exceptions was received by the clerk of court in Somerset county, where the action was pending, on December 14, 1901.

"I further find that said John Robinson died testate on November 14, 1901; that at the December term, 1901, of the probate court in Somerset county his estate was duly represented, and decreed insolvent, and commissioners were appointed according to law; and at the December term, 1901, of the Supreme Judicial Court in said county, in the said trustee action, the death of John Robinson and the insolvency of his estate was represented.

"Upon these findings of fact, which are all that I deem material in this case, I rule that the sum of five hundred dollars so placed in the hands of S. J. Walton was not impressed by any general trust, but that the purposes of the trust created by the written agreement herein before referred to were fully executed by the said proceedings in said trustee suit, and that said Walton is not now to be holden as trustee of said fund for the benefit of the complainant.

"It is therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the bill be dismissed, with a single bill of costs."

Does the above decree give the written agreement the interpretation to which, under all the circumstances of the case, it is entitled V We think not. We think the agreement went even further than the impressing the fund by a general trust for the benefit of the plaintiff. It placed the deposit in the hands of Mr. Walton as the contingent property of the plaintiff, dependent upon the decision of the court. If for the plaintiff, it was the property of the plaintiff; if for the defendant, it went back to the defendant.

The defendant's counsel, in his brief, contends that the trustee took the money "only for the purpose of holding it so that service might be made upon him in a trustee process, and the fund thereby attached." We cannot agree with him. The trustee process, instead of consummating the purposes of the agreement, was the means mutually adopted by the parties for determining its purposes. The procedure was simply an arrangement, as the use of the word "arrangement" in the agreement clearly shows. The form of process was of no consequence to the parties. They were seeking to reach a result. There was also nothing technical about the procedure. The trustee was mutually agreed upon. The money to be attached was voluntarily placed in his hands. Service of the writ was accepted by both the defendant and trustee. The deposit was made for the express purpose of being applied to the payment of the plaintiff's judgment, if it was not exempt. Nothing else, as the case shows, was contemplated by the act of deposit. Prom these voluntary acts of the parties, it is clearly evident that the only purpose of the "arrangement" or procedure was to enable the defendant to obtain the decision of the court upon his contention.

Up to this point all the formalities and technicalities necessary to authorize the entry of the case in court were waived by mutual consent, and it hardly seems probable that the parties understood or intended that the plaintiff, upon decision in his favor, should be obliged to pursue, to obtain possession of the money, "proceedings thereafter according to statute provisions." There was no reason why such proceedings should follow. The parties had no contention over the process. The charging the trustee with the money in his hands was merely the legal formality required by this particular process to give effect to the decision of the court. We do not therefore, think that the purposes of the trust created by the written agreement were fully executed by the process in the trustee suit, except that the opinion of the court at the end of this process fixed the status of the fund. When that opinion was recorded, the contingency upon which the plaintiff's title was to vest or fail happened, and the defendant was thereby divested of, and the plaintiff vested with, the title to the deposit. No further acts on the part of the plaintiff or the defendant seemed, in any particular, to be necessary to accomplish this end.

The defendant's counsel contends that the clause, "All provisions of law shall be available in defense the same as though said fund had remained in said Robinson's hands," secured to the defendant the statutory defenses available at every stage of trustee process. Technically the language of the clause precludes such a construction. For the purpose of denning the defenses contemplated, the clause assumes that the money shall remain in the hands of the principal defendant—a case in which trustee process will not lie at all; but "the provisions of law available in defense" could not have been intended to apply to a case that could not exist; hence the defenses available at the various stages of trustee process could not have been intended by the clause. Such defense was not contemplated. The clause was clearly intended to protect the defendant against any prejudice by reason of surrendering his money to the hands of a third party, and to secure to him all the advantages of the defense raised by him, as if the suit had been directly against him, without preference to trustee process. As the law looks to the substance, and not the form, and does not require the observance of useless formalities, we think the plaintiff was not required to pursue the statute provisions of trustee process in order to maintain his lien on the property in the bands of the trustee after the trustee was charged. In this case the rights of the plaintiff did not depend upon the attachment or lien, but upon the final decision of the court; the attachment being merely the "arrangement" agreed upon to obtain such decision. And it must have been so understood by the parties, because, as a matter of law, the plaintiff, by virtue of the process agreed upon, had no valid attachment or lien upon the deposit. An attachment by common-law garnishment, or trustee process, as it is called under our statute, cannot be created by consent "Garnishment rests wholly upon judicial process, and depends upon the due pursuit of the steps prescribed by law for its prosecution. It can borrow no aid from the volunteered acts of the garnishee. Such acts will be regarded as void so far as they interfere with the rights of third persons." Insurance Company v. Friedman Bros., 74 Tex. 56, 11 S. W. 1046; Drake on Att 451b; Wade on Att. 336.

We think the familiar rule of law applicable to the construction of written contracts fully warrants the interpretation above given to the written agreement now under consideration. In Merrill v. Gore, 29 Me. 348, the court say: "To ascertain the...