Orr v. Box

• Decision Date: 06 April 1876
• Citation: 22 Minn. 485
• Parties: JAMES ORR <I>vs.</I> WILLIAM BOX.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

22 Minn. 485

JAMES ORRvs.

WILLIAM BOX.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

April 6, 1876.

Action for the wrongful taking and conversion of certain personal property of plaintiff, a portion of which, it is

claimed, was exempt from execution. Defence, that the property was taken by defendant, as sheriff of Wabasha county, under and by virtue of certain writs of execution, issued out of a justice's court, on judgments against the plaintiff, and was duly sold to satisfy such executions; and, as to the property claimed to be exempt, that the defendant had absconded from the state, with intent to defraud his creditors, and was not, at the time of the taking, a resident of the state, and was, therefore, not entitled to the exemption claimed. The action was tried in the district court for Wabasha county, before Mitchell, J., (a jury being waived,) who ordered judgment for defendant. A new trial was refused, and plaintiff appealed.

Wilson & Taylor and S. L. Campbell, for appellant.

T. S. Van Dyke, for respondent.

CORNELL, J.

No point is made but that the execution, under and by virtue of which the officer acted in seizing and selling the property in question, was regular on its face, and appeared to have been issued upon a judgment rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction as respected the subject-matter of the action, and did not disclose any want of jurisdiction in respect to the person of the defendant therein. This was a full protection to the officer executing the process, whether in fact the justice ever acquired jurisdiction over the person of the defendant or not. Savacool v. Boughton, 5 Wend. 170. Hence the findings of fact, so far as they affect the validity of the judgment in the attachment suits before the justice, are immaterial. In respect to the other facts found by the court below, they are sufficiently supported by the evidence in the case to prevent any interference by an appellate court on that ground.

This brings us to the consideration of the main question in the case, which is this: Can an absconding debtor, who has departed the state without any intention of returning, and become a resident of another jurisdiction, avail himself of the benefits of our exemption laws in respect to personal property left behind him, and subsequently seized and sold upon execution in favor of his creditors? Whether other than resident debtors are embraced within the spirit and policy of our exemption laws, as they existed prior to the amendment of ...