Mooney v. U. P. R. Co.
| Decision Date | 15 December 1882 |
| Citation | 14 N.W. 343,60 Iowa 346 |
| Parties | MOONEY v. U. P. R. CO., GARNISHEE |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Pottawattamie Circuit Court.
THIS is an action brought in the court below against defendant, C. F Rollins, upon a promissory note. The Union Pacific Railway Company was attached as garnishee. There was a trial between the plaintiff and garnishee, and a judgment was rendered for the plaintiff, from which the garnishee appeals.
AFFIRMED.
J. S Shropshire and Baldwin & Wright, for appellant.
Clinton Hart & Brewer, for appellee.
I.
The cause was submitted to the court below, and is submitted to this court, upon an agreed statement of facts, of which the following is the substance:
The appellant was indebted to the defendant, Rollins, in the sum of three hundred dollars at the time the answer was filed. This sum was earned by Rollins as a mechanic in the employment of appellant in the State of Nebraska. He was hired in that State, and it was the custom of appellant to pay its employes thus hired, within that State, but there was no express contract as to where the wages should be paid. The general offices, and the offices of the pay-master and auditor of appellant, are in the state of Nebraska. By the laws of Nebraska, two hundred dollars of the amount due Rollins would have been exempt to him, and not liable to seizure for the payment of his debts in any suit brought in the courts of that State, being the amount of his wages for sixty days preceding the service of the garnishment notice. The original notice was served on Rollins personally, in the State of Nebraska, and the garnishment process was served on the appellant in Pottawattamic county, in this State. The appellant was then, and is now, a corporation organized under the laws of the United States, and engaged in the operation of a line of railway, beginning at a point within the City of Council Bluffs, in Pottawattamie county, Iowa and extending westward through the State of Nebraska. The plaintiff and Rollins were, at the commencement of this suit, and still are, residents of Nebraska, and plaintiff knew, when he commenced this suit, that by the law of Nebraska, if there sued, the defendant would have two months wages exempt from all process.
Section 2618 of the Code provides that service of an original notice may be made by publication "in actions brought against a non-resident of this State, or a foreign corporation having in this State property or debts owing to such defendant, sought to be taken by any provisional remedies, or to be appropriated in any way." And debts due the defendant in an action aided by attachment are attached by the garnishment thereof. § 2967. And it is a sufficient cause for attachment that the defendant is a non-resident of the State. § 2951.
There was no service by publication in this case, but personal service was made upon defendant in the State of Nebraska. This supercedes the necessity of service by publication. § 2621. And such personal service has the same force and effect, and the same jurisdiction is acquired, as would be if the service were by publication. Darrance v. Preston, 18 Iowa 396. It is contended by counsel for appellant that the debt from the railroad company to Rollins was not liable to attachment, because its situs was not in this State, but in the State of Nebraska. The facts show that the money due Rollins was earned in Nebraska and that he was a resident of that State, and that it was the custom of the railroad company to pay the wages of such employes within the State of Nebraska. The doctrine that a debt can have no locality separate from the party to whom it is due is applicable upon the question of the situs of credits for the purposes of taxation.
Such is the case of State tax on foreign held bonds--15 Wall. 300 and other authorities cited by counsel for appellant. But this rule or legal fiction, as it is denominated in the books, cannot be applied in this State to attachment proceedings against non-resident defendants. To do so would abrogate the sections of the statute above cited, because, if all debts must be located with and attach to the person of the debtor, there could be no garnishment of a person in this State, owing a debt to a person resident of another State. As is said in Green v. Van Buskirk, 74 U.S. 139, 7 Wall. 139, 19 L.Ed. 109, attachment laws "necessarily assume that property has a situs entirely distinct from the owner's domicile." "The plaintiff occupies, as against the garnishee, the position of the defendant, with no more rights than the defendant had, and liable to be met by any defense...
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