Neuer v. O'Fallon

• Decision Date: 31 March 1853
• Parties: NEUER, Plaintiff in Error, v. O'FALLON, GARNISHEE, Defendant in Error.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

18 Mo. 277

NEUER, Plaintiff in Error,

v.O'FALLON, GARNISHEE, Defendant in Error.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

March Term, 1853.

1. The treasurer of a corporation having its money in his hands, is not liable to garnishment in a suit against a creditor of the corporation.

2. The fact that the corporation has directed its treasurer to pay out of its funds in his hands a specific sum to the defendant in the attachment suit, as a mere gratutity for the benefit of third parties, will not render the treasurer liable to the process of garnishment, nor would it render the corporation thus liable.

Error to St. Louis Court of Common Pleas.

Neuer commenced a suit by attachment against Radford and Mallory, in which, on the 11th day of April, 1850, John O Fallon was summoned as garnishee. The allegations filed by the plaintiff stated that the garnishee, as treasurer of the Illinois coal company, at the time he was summoned, had in his hands a sum of money which the said company upon a settlement with the defendants, who were contractors, had set apart and directed to be paid to them. The answer of the garnishee denied that he had any money of the defendants in his hands, or under his control, either as treasurer or in his individual capacity. He stated that, in the year 1849, Radford and Mallory had a contract under the coal company, which they abandoned before completion, and it was regularly forfeited for non-fulfilment; that the defendants were paid, before the service of the garnishment, more than they were legally entitled to receive; that when the contract was forfeited, the defendants were indebted to their workmen, and the company, being fearful that, if the hands were not paid off, some injury would be done to the property of the company, agreed to pay the defendants what was necessary to enable them to pay off the laborers they had employed; that accordingly, the garnishee, under the authority and direction of the company, did, on the 27th of April, 1850, pay to said Radford and Mallory, out of the funds of the company, the sum of three hundred and fifty-six dollars and forty-nine cents, which was a mere donation from the company. Upon this answer, the garnishee was discharged.

C. B. Lord, for plaintiff in error.

It is admitted that the garnishee was not indebted to the defendants on his own account; but from the moment the money was set apart in his hands to be paid to the defendants it becomes either a credit, within the twelfth section of the act concerning...