Lehman v. Clark

• Decision Date: 10 July 1888
• Citation: 85 Ala. 109,4 So. 651
• Parties: LEHMAN ET AL. v. CLARK.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

4 So. 651

85 Ala. 109

LEHMAN ET AL. v. CLARK.

Supreme Court of Alabama

July 10, 1888

Appeal from city court, Montgomery county; T M. ARRINGTON, Judge.

This suit was brought by the appellee, Henry W. Clark, on two promissory notes executed by the appellants, defendants below, to the Masonic Temple Association in payment of a subscription to its capital stock. These notes were transferred by the Masonic Temple Association to the Southern Life Insurance Company as collateral to secure the payment of a loan of $40,000. The Southern Life Insurance Company became bankrupt, and one Wooldridge and others were made its assignees in bankruptcy. These assignees, after exhausting the mortgage security, which was insufficient to satisfy the debts of the Masonic Temple Association, sold and transferred to Henry W. Clark, the appellee, the claim against the Masonic Temple Association, and also the collaterals including the notes which are the foundation of this action. Thereupon a suit was brought in the name of Wooldridge and others, assignees, for the use of said Clark, in the city court of Montgomery, against the Masonic Temple Association and a judgment recovered for a large amount. Upon this judgment a writ of garnishment was issued against the defendants, (appellants here,) and a number of other persons who were indebted to the Masonic Temple Association in the same way. This garnishment was issued March 22, 1881, and like the judgment on which it was founded, was in the name of Wooldridge and others, assignees, for the use of Clark. Afterwards, and pending that garnishment suit, on the 29th day of December, 1882, this suit was commenced by a summons and complaint in the name of Henry W. Clark, as transferee of the notes, and against the defendants as makers. At the February term, 1883, the defendants pleaded in abatement the pendency of the garnishment suit; but, on motion of the plaintiff, this plea was stricken from the file on the ground that it was filed too late. Afterwards, at the fall term 1884, the garnishment suit was tried, the issue was found in favor of the garnishees, and they were discharged. When this present case was tried at the October term, 1887, the defendant endeavored by plea to set up the judgment in the garnishment suit as a bar to a recovery in this action. Issue was made up, and upon a trial of the cause there was a verdict and judgment for the plaintiff. The defendants appealed, and the sole question presented for decision in the case is whether the judgment discharging the defendants as garnishees bars the right of plaintiff to a judgment on the notes sued on in this action.

W. H. Graves and Watts & Son, for appellants.

Tompkins, London & Troy and Lester C. Smith, for appellee.

SOMERVILLE J.

The main point raised by the present record is one involving the question of res adjudicata. It is contended by appellants that their discharge as garnishees in the garnishment proceeding brought by Wooldridge on the judgment obtained by him, for the use of Henry W. Clark, against the Masonic Temple Association, is a full defense to the present suit, which is one brought in the name of Clark himself claiming to be the holder and quasi owner of the notes due by the garnishees, Lehman, Durr & Co., for their unpaid stock subscriptions to said Masonic Temple Association. The facts in the garnishment suit were, in substance, precisely those that existed in the case of Wooldridge v. Holmes, 78 Ala. 568; the defendant Holmes and the appellants occupying analogous positions as garnishees and stock subscribers in the same corporation. In that case, as here, it appeared that the judgment on which the garnishment issued had been recovered in the name of Wooldridge for the use of Clark as beneficiary. Clark was considered, therefore, by the terms of the statute, as the sole party plaintiff on the record. Code 1886, § 2595. The defense set up to that suit by Holmes was that the plaintiff held the stock subscription note due by the garnishee as collateral security for the judgment on which the garnishment...