Price v. Soc'y for Sav.

• Decision Date: 31 May 1894
• Citation: 64 Conn. 362,30 A. 139
• Parties: PRICE v. SOCIETY FOR SAVINGS.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

30 A. 139

64 Conn. 362

PRICE

v. SOCIETY FOR SAVINGS.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

May 31, 1894.

Case reserved from court of common pleas, Hartford county; Calhoun, Judge.

Scire facias by Robert Price against the Society for Savings, garnishee. On defendant's demurrer, case reserved for the advice of the supreme court of errors. Judgment advised for defendant.

William F. Henney, for plaintiff.

Joseph L. Barbour, for defendant.

BALDWIN, J. Rev. St U. S. § 4747, provides that "no sum of money due, or to become due, to any pensioner shall be liable to attachment, levy, or seizure by or under any legal or equitable process whatever, whether the same remains with the pension office, or any officer or agent thereof, or is in course of transmission to the pensioner entitled thereto, but shall inure wholly to the benefit of such pensioner." This statute protects pension money from attachment so long as it remains due to the pensioner, but not after it has been actually paid over, and has come into his possession. Spelman v. Aldrich, 126 Mass. 113; Friend v. Garcelon, 77 Me. 25; Rozelle v. Rhodes, 116 Pa. St 129, 9 Atl. 160. Gen. St § 1164, exempts from attachment or execution "any pension moneys received from the United States, while in the hands of the pensioner." The validity of the plaintiff's attachment must therefore depend on whether that part of Covel's pension money which he deposited with the defendant can be considered as still in his hands. The deposit, as soon as made, transferred the title to the particular bills or specie which were deposited from the pensioner to the savings bank. But he also became substantially a part owner of all the assets of the bank. It was an agency for receiving and loaning money on account of its depositors. Savings Bank v. New London, 20 Conn. 111; Bunnell v. Society, 38 Conn. 203; Osborn v. Byrne, 43 Conn. 155. A pension is a bounty for past services rendered to the public. It is mainly designed to assist the pensioner in providing for his daily wants. Statutes protecting his interest in it, until so used, are of a remedial nature, and entitled to a liberal construction. Montague v. Richardson, 24 Conn. 338, 348; Patten v. Smith, 4 Conn. 450, 454; Bank v. Carpenter, 119 N. Y. 550, 23 N. E. 1108. It would be unreasonable to require a pensioner to keep so large a sum as $600 in his personal custody until he had occasion to expend or opportunity to invest it it would be still in his hands, within the meaning of the law, though left...