Keyser v. Rice

• Decision Date: 19 June 1877
• Citation: 47 Md. 203
• Parties: LEWIS W. KEYSER v. JOHN N. RICE.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

47 Md. 203

LEWIS W. KEYSER v. JOHN N. RICE.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

June 19, 1877

JURISDICTION.

APPEAL from the Circuit Court for Allegany County, in Equity.

On the 6th of March, 1876, the appellant filed in the Circuit Court for Allegany County, sitting as a Court of equity, his bill asking for relief by way of injunction, to restrain the appellee from the further prosecution, in Piedmont, W. Va of an attachment, by which the latter sought to recover from him the sum of $31.25 due him as wages in Cumberland Maryland, by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company. On April 8th, 1876, the answer of Defendant was filed, denying the material allegations of the bill, and on the 12th August following, PEARRE, Judge, passed an order dissolving the preliminary injunction, after hearing an argument on an agreed statement of facts. This agreement was in effect as follows: that both the appellant and appellee were, at the date of the preparation of the agreement and the issue of the attachment, in West Virginia, citizens and residents of Allegany County, Maryland, Keyser, being an employé at Cumberland in the rolling mill of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, which was indebted to him for wages and hire, and on no other account in an amount less than $100 payable at Cumberland. That the appellee, although no judgment had been rendered against Keyser, obtained from Sims, a justice of the peace, at Piedmont, W. Va., a writ of attachment and procured the same to be laid in the hands of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company as garnishee, at Piedmont, for the purpose of securing the debt due him by the appellant, amounting to $31.25, contracted subsequent to March 3rd, 1874, the date of the passage of the Act of Assembly of 1874, ch. 45, under which the wages or hire of employés are in certain cases held exempt from attachment.

From this decision of the Court and the order thereon passed dissolving the injunction, this appeal is taken.

The cause was argued before BARTOL, C.J., BOWIE, BRENT, ALVEY and ROBINSON, J.

Carroll Sprigg, Jas. A. Buchanan and John K. Cowen, for the appellant.

Three questions are suggested by an examination of the record.

1. Has a Court of Maryland the power to enjoin one of its own citizens from prosecuting a suit in a foreign tribunal?

2. Under what circumstances will the Court exercise that power?

3. Are the circumstances of the present case of such a nature as to justify the exercise of that power of the Court.

1. In the exercise of this power, Courts of equity proceed, not upon any claim of right to interfere with, or control the course of proceedings in other tribunals, but the jurisdiction is founded on the clear authority vested in Courts of equity over persons within the limits of their jurisdiction and amenable to process, to restrain them from doing acts which will work wrong and injury to others. Wn. & Tud. L. Cas. in Eq., vol. II, 1397, 4 th Ed.; High on Injunctions, sec. 60; Dehon vs. Foster, 4 Allen, 545; Bank vs. Rutland & B. R. R. Co., 28 Vt., 476; Hays vs. Ward, 4 Johns. Ch., 123.

2. And it matters not that the relief demanded affects property lying beyond the jurisdiction of the Court, for without regard to the situation of the subject-matter of dispute it considers the equities between the parties, and decrees in personam according to the equities, and enforces obedience to its decrees in personam. All that is necessary in such an event is, that inasmuch as the proceedings are in personam, the defendant should be subject to the authority of the Court and within reach of its process--and also that the complainant should show an equity. 2 Story on Eq., secs. 899, 900; Massie vs. Watts, 6 Cranch, 148; Penn vs. Lord Baltimore, 1 Ves., Sr., 444; Mitchell vs. Bunch, 2 Paige, 606; Buchanan, et al. vs. Lorman, et al., 3 Gill, 51.

From the cases above cited it will be clearly seen that where the proceedings instituted by the person sought to be enjoined are likely to result in oppression, or work injustice to the complainant, it is the duty of the Court to intervene and forbid the perpetration of the wrong. "Extreme delicacy should not deter the Court from controlling the conduct of a party within its jurisdiction to prevent fraud. No rule of comity or of policy forbids it." Vail vs. Knapp, 49 Barb., 305; Great Falls, &c. vs. Worster, 23 N. H., 470.

The Act of Assembly of this State, 1874, ch. 45, declares that no attachment shall be issued by a citizen of this State to affect the wages or hire of a resident, (extended so as to include non-residents by the Act of 1874, ch. 230) of this State, unless the amount claimed and for which the attachment is issued exceeds $100, and it futhermore exempts in all cases from attachment, wages or hire in the hands of an employer to the extent of $100.

Such being the law of this State the appellee could not pretend to recover here by an attachment proceeding; the sum of $31.25 from the appellant, which by an exactly similar process, he attempts to secure in a foreign tribunal--it being admitted that the sum for which the writ of attachment was issued in Piedmont is less than $100, and that the amount due the appellant by the garnishee, his employer, is less than $100, and is due to him exclusively on account of wages or hire. As a necessary consequence of the action taken by the appellee, it must follow, that, although the sum for which the attachment is issued is less than $100, and although there is not due to the appellant a sum in excess of $100, the former will secure, unless the injunction be made perpetual, the only sum of money which the State of Maryland says he shall not touch, and that too by a procedure forbidden by the law of the State, in which both he and his debtor live. This is not only an evasion, but is also an open and direct violation of both the spirit and letter of the law of the land.

B. F. M. Hurley, for appellee.

First.--The bill of complaint in this cause does not present a case for granting an injunction, because the equities set forth are not in themselves ample for that purpose, and if such is not the case, the answer of the appellee fully denies all the circumstances upon which the equity of the bill is founded.

Second.--A Court of equity never will, against equity and good conscience, interpose by way of injunction to disturb a citizen in his effort to recover money honestly due him by lawful means in the Courts of another State, unless the justice of that Court can be impeached by facts, or on grounds of which the complainant could not avail himself at law in that tribunal, or when required to do so upon principles of public policy, or when there is an equitable question to be decided before the matter can be safely disposed of. Craig vs. Ankeney, 4 Gill, 225.

Third.--Where a party applies for an injunction against a creditor, who is seeking the payment of an honest debt by due process of law, and admits that he owes the person to be enjoined, he ought to bring into Court the sum of money admitted to be due and unpaid, to be paid accordingly; otherwise, the Court of equity would be a handmaid to iniquity and injustice. For "he who seeks equity must do equity." Hilliard on Injunctions, 269; 28 Verm., 470.

Fourth.--Citizens of the several States may sue in the Courts of Maryland, and such right is guaranteed under the first clause of the 2nd section of Article IV of the Constitution of the United States, which says: "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of the citizens in the several States;" and this gives the right to the citizens of Maryland to institute and maintain actions of any kind in the Courts of other States. Ward vs. State of Md., 12 Wallace, 418; Morgan vs. Neville, 74 Pa., 53; 4 Washington C. C. Rep., 380; Mead vs. Merritt & Peck, 2 Paige, 381; Peck vs. Jenness, 7 Howard, 624, 625.

Fifth.--That the Mineral County Court of West Virginia, where the complainant has had the attachment proceedings named in his bill of complaint transmitted by his order, and where the proceedings are still pending, is not a Court of ordinary jurisdiction, of doubtful authority and of judicial rights; therefore it was and still is the duty of the appellant to appear before that tribunal and protect and vindicate himself in a proper and legal manner. Gott & Wilson vs. Carr, 6 G. & J., 309 and 312; Richardson, et al. vs. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 8 Gill, 433.

Sixth.--That whether the appellee has the right at law to proceed by way of the attachment laws of West Virginia, is a legal question for that Court to determine, and not an Equity Court of Maryland, otherwise it would be restricting the rights of a citizen of Maryland within much narrower limits than has heretofore been done, or than I think was ever designed.

BOWIE J., delivered the opinion of the Court. (ROBINSON, J., dissenting.)

The second section of the 4th Article of the Constitution of the United States, although construed in several cases, in the State and Federal Courts, has never (until very recently) as far as we are aware, been considered a restriction on the Legislatures of the several States, in regard to contracts between their own citizens, or the remedies proper for the enforcement of those contracts.

The Courts have been extremely cautious in defining the meaning of a clause couched in such general terms. (See Conner vs. Elliott, 18 How., 593.) In the recent case of Ward vs. The State, 31 Md., 279, this Court collected and cited the definitions of the meaning of this section, from various cases. In Campbell vs Morris, 3 H. & McH., 554, it was said to mean that the citizens of all the States shall have the peculiar advantage of acquiring and holding real and...