Kean Buchanan, Plaintiff In Error v. James Alexander

• Decision Date: 01 January 1846
• Citation: 45 U.S. 20,11 L.Ed. 857,4 How. 20
• Parties: McKEAN BUCHANAN, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. JAMES ALEXANDER
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

45 U.S. 20

4 How. 20

11 L.Ed. 857

McKEAN BUCHANAN, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR,v.JAMES ALEXANDER.

January Term, 1846

Mr Justice McLEANdelivered the opinion of the court.

This is one of six cases depending upon the same principle, which have been brought before this court by writs of error to the Circuit Superior Court for the county of Norfolk, State of Virginia, under the twenty-fifth section of the Judiciary Act of 1789.

Six writs of attachment were issued by a justice of the peace of the above county of Norfolk, by boarding-house keepers, against certain seamen of the frigate Constitution, which had just returned from a cruise.The writs were laid on moneys in the hands of the purser, the plaintiff in error, due to the seamen for wages.The money was afterwards paid to the seamen by the purser, in disregard of the attachments, by the order of the Secretary of the Navy.

The purser admitted before the justice that the several sums attached were in his hands due to the seamen, but contended he was not amenable to the process.The justice entered judgments against him on the attachments.The cases were appealed to the Superior Court of the county, which affirmed the judgments of the justice.And that being the highest court of the State which can exercise jurisdiction in the cases, and its judgments being against a right and authority set up under a law of the United States, may be revised in this court by a writ of error.

The important question is, whether the money in the hands of the purser, though due to the seamen for wages, was attachable.A purser, it would seem, cannot, in this respect, be...