Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Smith

• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: WOODS, J.
• Citation: Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Smith, 70 Miss. 344, 12 So. 461 (Miss. 1893)
• Decision Date: 13 February 1893
• Parties: ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD CO. v. ELIAS SMITH

12 So. 461

70 Miss. 344

ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD CO. v. ELIAS SMITH

Supreme Court of Mississippi

February 13, 1893

FROM the circuit court of Pike county, HON. W. P. CASSEDY, Judge.

The opinion sufficiently states the facts.

Affirmed.

S. E Packwood, for appellant.

The suit in Iowa having been first commenced, and having jurisdiction, takes precedence. The exemption laws do not concern us in this case. Appellant is sued as garnishee of plaintiff in another pending suit, and that suit should have the same effect as if pending here. Our courts will give the statute of Iowa the same effect as it has in that state. 7 Cranch, 481; 3 Wheat., 234; 17 Wall., 521.

Mayes &amp Harris, on the same side.

The pendency of a foreign attachment and garnishment is a good plea in abatement in a case like this. The defendant is not attempting to evade any exemption laws, nor to withhold any debt from its employe. It should not be made to suffer by paying twice.

Price &amp Sternberger, for appellee.

Our courts will not lend themselves to an interstate debt-collecting scheme, such as is here disclosed, to evade our exemption laws. The wages are payable here, and the situs of the debt must govern. Story on Conf. Laws, 549; 8 Am. & Eng. Enc. L., 1254; 3 Ib., 523; Drake on Attach., §§ 478, 480.

OPINION

WOODS, J.

The appellee is a mechanic, the head of a family and a resident in this state. He is employed as such mechanic by appellant, in its shops at McComb City, in this state. The debt sued for is wages due from appellant to appellee under such employment. By the terms of the contract, made at said McComb City, the wages sued for were payable at that place, and amount to less than one hundred dollars. Under our law, these wages are exempt from garnishment or other legal process. The appellant is a corporation, doing business and resident in this state. We have, then, both creditor and debtor residents of this state; the sum sued for due under a contract made in this state, by the terms of which the wages are to be paid in the state; the creditor is a mechanic, the head of a family and entitled to the exemption of wages, to an amount not exceeding one hundred dollars, from garnishment or other legal process.

In bar of a recovery, or in abatement of this suit, appellant pleaded that it had been summoned in a court in the state of Iowa in an attachment-suit, began there against the appellee by one A. M. Dunkel, and had made answer, showing an indebtedness due appellee of $ 15, and that said suit in Iowa was yet pending and undetermined.

From the brief of the very candid and able counsel for appellant, we are led to believe that this is a collusive attachment-suit in Iowa, and that some Mississippi creditor, who cannot make the money due by Smith, the appellee, in our courts, because of our exemption laws, is really the plaintiff in attachment in Iowa. If this appeared in the record, we could affirm the judgment of the court below without remark, as we know of no court which has ever lent any countenance to such collusive effort to defeat the exemption laws of the state of residence of the real creditor and his debtor. In the absence of any evidence in the record on this point, we address ourself to the sufficiency of the plea of appellant, on general principles.

Will attachment lie in a foreign state for the debt sued for in this action, on the facts hereinbefore stated? There is some real conflict--and much confusion not reaching the proportions of actual conflict--in the decisions on the subject. Much of this confusion, and some of the conflict has arisen out of a misapprehension of the real nature of the question. With a clear misapprehension of the character of the controversy, several of the courts of last resort in the United States have misled themselves and misled others by inveighing against supposed attempts to give extraterritorial effect to exemption laws. The suggestion that this is the question involved is wide of the mark. It is really this question: Shall the state give its exemption laws intraterritorial force, in cases like the one at bar? Shall railroad corporations, doing business and resident in this state, be regarded and treated, in this and like cases, just as natural...