Margarum v. Moon

• Decision Date: 10 October 1902
• Citation: 63 N.J.E. 686,53 A. 179
• Parties: MARGARUM v. MOON et al. HOGAN v. CROOKS. MURFIT v. ROBBINS. HASSON v. ROACHE. CAPPELL v. SHADINGER. PREST v. WHITE. AYERS v. HOLTZ.
• Court: New Jersey Court of Chancery

53 A. 179

63 N.J.E. 686

MARGARUM

v. MOON et al.

HOGAN

v. CROOKS.

MURFIT

v. ROBBINS.

HASSON

v. ROACHE.

CAPPELL

v. SHADINGER.

PREST

v. WHITE.

AYERS

v. HOLTZ.

Court of Chancery of New Jersey.

Oct. 10, 1902.

Suit by Samuel J. Margarum against Walter E. Moon and others, and by Hogan against Crooks, by Murflt against Robbins, by Hasson against Roache, by Cappell against Shadinger, by Prest against White, and by Ayers against Holtz. On rules to show cause why injunction should not issue, restraining defendants from prosecuting attachments in West Virginia. Injunctions denied in all but the last case, and in that granted.

John A. Montgomery and W. M. Lanning, for complainants.

W. Holt Apgar and W. D. Holt, for defendants.

REED, V. C. Margarum, the complainant, resides in Trenton, is married, living with and supporting a family, and not owning $200 worth of personal property. He is a servant of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, which company owes him for wages the sum of $100. Walter E. Moon, the defendant, is also a resident of this state. Margarum owes Moon the sum of $66.61. According to the affidavits, Moon has assigned his claim against Margarum to George O. Smith, attorney for the Delaware Mercantile Company, of Harrisburg. The assignee has attached in the courts of West Virginia the wages due to Margarum from the railroad company. The assignment is in terms absolute, the consideration for the same being that Moon was to receive one-half of any amount recovered by the assignee. It is obvious that the purpose of the assignee in obtaining the assignment was to evade the statute of this state which exempts property of a debtor from execution to an amount up to the value of $200. Mr. Moon, in his affidavit, disclaims any knowledge that attachment suits have been begun in the courts of West Virginia, or that he has any control over such suits. He denies that he has combined with the company or with Smith for the purpose of evading the statute laws of the state of New Jersey, or of depriving Margarum of his wages.

The jurisdiction of courts of equity to act in personam upon persons within their jurisdictions, by restraining them from using the courts of another state to execute an inequitable purpose, must be regarded as settled. 1 High, Inj. § 103. The injunction is not directed to the foreign tribunal, but to the party within the jurisdiction of the equity court. This judicial power was exercised in the case of Cunningham v. Butler, 142 Mass. 47, 6 N. E. 782, 56 Am. Rep. 657. In that case a citizen of Massachusetts, with knowledge that his debtor, residing there, had stopped payment, and anticipating proceedings in insolvency against him, made an assignment of his claim to a citizen of New York, without consideration; and the latter, before proceedings in insolvency were begun, brought an action upon the claim in New York, and attached property of the debtor there. The Massachusetts court, on a bill filed in equity by the assignee in insolvency, restrained the creditor from prosecuting the action to judgment; the court having found that the creditors still had control over such action. The exercise of the injunctive power in this case was held to be constitutional when the case came before the supreme court of the United States sub nomine Cole v. Cunningham, 133 U. S. 107, 10 Sup. Ct. 269, 33 L. Ed. 538. In Keyser v. Rice, 47 Md. 203, 28 Am. Rep. 448, an injunction was supported, restraining a creditor residing in Maryland from further prosecuting in Piedmont, W. Va., an attachment by which he sought to recover wages due to his debtor, also residing in Maryland, from the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. In Snook v. Snetzer, 25 Ohio St. 516, a similar exertion of the injunctive power by a court of equity was approved by the supreme court of Ohio. Creditor and debtor were residents of the state of Ohio. The debtor was head of a family, and wages due him from the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad were garnished in West Virginia. In both cases the proceedings in the foreign jurisdiction were instituted to evade the exemption law of the state in which creditor and debtor were domiciled. Mr. High states the doctrine to be that where a creditor and debtor are both citizens and residents in the same state, and the creditor institutes an action of attachment or garnishee proceedings in another state to reach credits due the debtor there, which would have been exempt from attachment or judicial process under the laws of the state where both parties were domiciled, the creditor may be enjoined from further prosecuting his action in the foreign state; it being regarded as an effort to evade the laws of the state of his domicile. 1 High, Inj. § 100. The cases in which the exertion of this injunctive power has been exercised to restrain such proceedings in foreign jurisdiction under such conditions are cited by Mr. High under section 105, supra, and by Mr. Waples under section 743 of his work on Attachment. Therefore, where it appears that the resident creditor is prosecuting a proceeding in another state for...