Jennings v. Wysong
| Decision Date | 30 June 1964 |
| Docket Number | 8 Div. 147 |
| Citation | 166 So.2d 420,276 Ala. 692 |
| Parties | C. A. JENNINGS et al. v. Kathleen V. WYSONG et al. |
| Court | Alabama Supreme Court |
Humphrey, Lutz & Smith, Huntsville, for appellants.
Cloud & Berry, Huntsville, for appellee-intervenor. HARWOOD, Justice.
This is an appeal from a decree entered in an attempted intervention petition filed by the wife of Earl Wysong. The intervention was sought in a suit begun by attachment against Wysong. The property attached was a one-half interest in real estate which had been deeded to Mr. and Mrs. Wysong jointly.
The record is comparatively short, but presents a series of anomalous legal situations which have been most difficult of solution.
A history of the proceedings leading up to the intervention suit is essential to a consideration of this appeal. The record discloses the following:
(1) In 1954, the real estate in question was conveyed to Earl Wysong and Kathleen Wysong jointly. Thereafter the property was assessed in their joint names.
(2) On 8 March 1960, Mrs. Wysong filed a petition for divorce and in her prayer for relief prayed that the title to the land in question, which was described with particularity, be vested in her.
(3) On 5 December 1961, a suit was begun by C. A. Jennings and Fielding L. Pearson against Earl M. Wysong. Jennings and Pearson as accommodation makers had signed a note with Earl M. Wysong, and later had had to pay this note. Wysong at the time of the filing of the suit by Jennings and Pearson was a non-resident and this suit was begun by an attachment on the one-half interest of Wysong in the land in question.
(4) On 6 December 1961, the sheriff of Madison County attached the real estate. At this time he gave Mrs. Wysong a copy of the attachment, and it is uncontradicted that she knew of the attachment.
(5) On 30 January 1962, a divorce decree a mensa et thoro was awarded Mrs. Wysong pursuant to her petition filed on 8 March 1960, and full title to the real estate was vested in Mrs. Wysong in the decree.
(6) On 9 March 1962, a judgment by default was awarded to Jennings and Pearson in their suit and Wysong's one-half interest in the land seized was ordered sold, the court finding that some $1200 was due from Wysong to Jennings and Pearson.
(7) On 14 March 1962, Wysong, appearing specially, filed a motion to set aside the default judgment, alleging he had not been properly served.
(8) On 20 March 1962, the court, without a hearing, ordered the sheriff to withhold sale of the property seized under the attachment until further orders of the court.
(9) On 3 May 1962, Mrs. Wysong petitioned the court to be allowed to intervene in the Jennings and Pearson suit. The petition to intervene was granted, and Mrs. Wysong filed her intervention, service of the intervention being acknowledged by Jennings and Pearson on that date.
(10) On 2 October 1962, the court entered an order overruling Mr. Wysong's motion to set aside the default judgment rendered against him on 9 March 1962.
(11) On 1 November 1962, Mrs. Wysong's petition of intervention was heard, and on 18 December 1962, the court entered a judgment abating the attachment, and further found Mrs. Wysong's claim to the property to be superior to that of Jennings and Pearson, and that Mr. Wysong owned no interest in the property.
Since Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714, 24 L.Ed. 565, it has been settled that where a suit is begun by attachment against a non-resident, it is in the nature of a proceedings in rem. Of necessity the judgment must ascertain and declare the amount of the debt sought to be enforced by the attachment. There must follow the condemnation of the property attached. The judgment of the court, though in form a personal judgment against the defendant, has no effect beyond the property attached. No general exection can be issued for any balance unpaid after the property attached is exhausted. No suit can be maintained on such a judgment in the same court or in any other, nor can it be used as evidence in any other proceeding in affecting the attached property. Exchange National Bank of Spokane v. Clement, 109...
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Ex parte Lewis
...a lien upon the property or effects of a defendant for satisfaction of a judgment that the plaintiff may obtain. See Jennings v. Wysong, 276 Ala. 692, 166 So.2d 420 (1964). This Court has stated that the purpose of an attachment is to make the jurisdiction of the court in the main proceedin......
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Allen Trucking Co., Inc. v. Adams
...Harrison, 122 Ala. 149, 25 So. 697. Additionally, attachment proceedings against a nonresident are proceedings In rem. Jennings v. Wysong, 276 Ala. 692, 166 So.2d 420. The U.S. Supreme Court specifically held constitutional a prejudgment Delaware foreign attachment law in Ownbey v. Morgan, ......
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Denton v. Edmiston
...and judgment in district court, and whether the attachment was dissolved by the district court's judgment. See Jennings v. Wysong, 276 Ala. 692, 166 So.2d 420 (1964) (an attachment is purely ancillary to the main suit and if the court enters a judgment for the amount of plaintiff's claim, a......
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MATTER OF BRUFFEY, Bankruptcy No. 80-00642-SW
...attached effects, the attachment would be considered as released." 7 C.J.S. Attachment section 216, p. 516 (1980); Jennings v. Wysong, 276 Ala. 692, 166 So.2d 420 (1964); Kaylor v. Davy Pocahontas Coal Co., 118 Va. 369, 87 S.E. 551 (1916). But see note 5, supra, referring to the prior editi......