Howland v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company

• Decision Date: 02 June 1896
• Citation: 36 S.W. 29,134 Mo. 474
• Parties: Howland v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company, Appellant
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

36 S.W. 29

134 Mo. 474

Howland v. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company, Appellant

Supreme Court of Missouri, Second Division

June 2, 1896

Appeal from Grundy Circuit Court. -- Hon. P. C. Stepp, Judge.

Reversed and remanded.

W. E Clark for appellant.

Under the agreed statement of facts the court below erred in rendering final judgment against appellant, because: First. The Iowa court in the garnishment proceedings set out had jurisdiction of the parties and the wages garnished. Wyeth v. Lang, 127 Mo. 242; 54 Mo.App. 147; 29 S.W 1010; Mooney v. Railroad, 60 Iowa 346. Second. While, under the agreed statement of facts, the Iowa court should have allowed respondent said wages as exempt, still that was a defense that could be interposed by no one but respondent; garnishee could not interpose it for him. Osborne v. Schutt, 67 Mo. 712; Moore v Railroad, 43 Iowa 385. True, appellant did attempt to set up said defense to the garnishment suit in Iowa, but the court there refused to allow said exemption. Garnishee, under the decisions last above cited, was under no obligation to further insist upon said defense, by appeal or otherwise. Third. By disregarding the Iowa attachment and garnishment proceedings the court below refused to give such proceedings the faith and credit to which they were entitled under the constitution of the United States. Const. U.S., art. 4, sec. 1.

J. S. Parker fo rrespondent.

(1) The judgment and finding of the circuit court is not in violation of the constitution of the United States. (2) Full faith and credit must be given to the judicial proceedings of a sister state, only when the court of said state had jurisdiction of the subject-matter. Wyeth Hardware Co. v. Lang, 54 Mo.App. 149; Cole v. Cunningham, 133 U.S. 107. (3) The Iowa court in this case had no jurisdiction over the subject-matter. Sec. 3, chap. 102 of the acts of the Twenty-fifth General Assembly of the state of Iowa; R. S. Mo. 1889, sec. 5220; Dunn v. Railroad, 45 Mo.App. 37. (4) It is the duty of the garnishee to make the defense of want of jurisdiction in the court. McCord, Nave & Co. v. Bittle, 58 Mo.App. 384.

OPINION

Sherwood, J.

Action in Grundy county, Missouri, before a justice of the peace by plaintiff against defendant company brought July 31, 1894, for work and labor done on the road of that company in the county named, the account amounting to $ 31.20, being for twenty-six days' labor at $ 1.20 per day.

On the cause coming up to the circuit court, in September, 1894, it was submitted to the court on the agreed statement of facts, which in substance is the following, so far as necessary to be stated:

During the months of June and July, 1894, plaintiff, the head of a family and resident of Grundy county, Missouri, did work and labor for defendant company, for the time and amount and in the county as heretofore stated. He did not during the time mentioned own property exceeding $ 50 in value. As much as $ 20 of the amount earned was earned within thirty days of the seventeenth of July, 1894, and the residue of the amount sued for was earned more than thirty days before the last mentioned date.

Defendant company, organized and existing under the laws of Illinois and Iowa, operates a line of railroad extending from Chicago, Illinois, through that state and the states of Iowa and Missouri, and passing through Lineville in Wayne county, Iowa, and Trenton, Grundy county, Missouri, having station agents at each of said towns.

On the aforementioned seventeenth of July, one Briegel, though resident in Grundy county, Missouri, instead of suing plaintiff in that county, went up into Iowa and brought suit by attachment and publication in Lineville, Wayne county, against plaintiff as a nonresident, before a justice of the peace on an account for goods sold plaintiff in Grundy county, Missouri, while both plaintiffs were residents of the county of Grundy. In such attachment suit defendant company was garnished in Lineville, Iowa, as the debtor of plaintiff, which suit was still pending and undetermined at the time this action was tried.

Under the law of Iowa nonresidence is a valid ground for attachment, and all the proceedings had in Iowa in and about the attachment suit were in usual form.

Defendant company answered as garnishee, admitting its indebtedness to plaintiff in the sum of $ 31.20, and claiming that such sum was due plaintiff, the attachment debtor, and that said amount was due for wages and was exempt from garnishment in its hands.

Shortly after the institution of the attachment suit already mentioned, plaintiff in the present action made affidavit setting forth that he was the head of a family, etc., etc.; that the sum in controversy was for wages and therefore exempt from attachment, garnishment, etc., and delivered such affidavit to defendant company with its answer, who filed the same with the justice before whom the attachment was pending, but that officer refused to allow the exemption. No personal service was had on plaintiff, the attachment debtor, in the action in Iowa, nor did he enter his personal appearance.

Each party was granted permission to use in evidence the statutes of Iowa.

On the trial plaintiff herein read in evidence the following section from those statutes, to wit:

"Sec. 3. And, whenever in any proceedings in any court in this state to subject the wages due any person to garnishment, it shall appear that such person is a nonresident of the state of Iowa; that the wages earned by him were earned outside of the state of Iowa, the said person, whose wages are so sought to be subjected to garnishment, shall be allowed the same exemption as is at the time allowed to him by law of the state in which he resides."

At the conclusion of the evidence, defendant company asked these declarations of law:

"1. Under the agreed statement of facts and evidence in this case, the court declares the law to be with the defendant, and the finding and judgment must be for the defendant.

"2. There is no evidence in this case that defendant herein is colluding with the plaintiff in the Iowa suit, or that it is willingly doing any act or encouraging any act tending to defeat plaintiff herein in his just rights."

Of which declarations number 2 was given, but number 1 refused.

These preliminaries of fact form the basis for the discussion of the following points of law:

1. In Wyeth, etc., Co. v. Lang, 127 Mo. 242, 29 S.W. 1010, we approved the ruling of the Kansas City court of appeals in the same case, wherein it was held that debts have no situs, but may be attached in any state other than that in which the debtor is resident. 54 Mo.App. 147.

This point being settled in this way, leaves free for examination the other questions involved in this record.

2. The justice of the peace in Iowa had jurisdiction over the subject-matter of the action, to wit, over that class of cases, and when that jurisdiction created by the law was put in motion by the filing of the necessary papers, publication and the service of process on the garnishee, then jurisdiction over that particular case and the res therein involved was acquired.

The justice of the peace then, having jurisdiction, that is, the power to hear and determine all the issues presented in the cause before him, had the authority, privilege, and prerogative of rejecting the evidence showing that the present plaintiff was entitled under the statute of Iowa to hold the debt garnished as wages earned in Missouri.

And the fact that a portion of the debt, to wit, $ 20 of it, was in truth exempted under the laws of Missouri, because of having been earned within thirty days at the time of suit brought in Iowa, did not have the effect to abate by one jot or tittle the jurisdiction of the justice of the peace to decide to the contrary of what the statute of Iowa required. His jurisdiction to decide contrary to law was just as great as to decide in conformity with law. His power to decide right necessarily included the power to decide wrong. Error does not diminish jurisdiction. There is a broad and turnpikelike distinction between the existence of jurisdiction and its mere exercise. Hunt v. Hunt, 72 N.Y. 217; Hagerman v. Sutton, 91 Mo. 519, 4 S.W. 73, and cases cited; Works, Courts & Jurisdict., sec. 8, pp. 18, 19, et seq.; Brown, Jurisdict., secs. 1, 1a; Freeman, Judgments [4 Ed.], secs. 135, 136.

From these premises it follows that the jurisdiction of the justice of the peace in Iowa was full and complete, and consequently his judgment in the cause before him, even if partly or totally erroneous, rests, speaking generally, on as secure a basis as would the judgment of a circuit or other court of general jurisdiction, and can not, at least in the method attempted, be overthrown by a collateral attack.

3. Besides, it has been ruled in the state of Iowa, as well as in this state, that an exemption is a personal privilege, and can only be pleaded and taken advantage of by the execution or attachment debtor. Such plea of exemption can not be pleaded for him by his debtor, the garnishee. Moore v. Railroad, 43 Iowa 385; Osborne v. Schutt, 67 Mo. 712. To the same effect is Conley v. Chilcote, 25 Ohio St. 320. This being the case the justice in Iowa did not err in rejecting any evidence of exemptions.

But whether he erred or not, could not, as heretofore seen, defeat his lawfully existing and lawfully acquired jurisdiction.

4. This leads to the...