Providence Inst. for Sav. v. Barr

• Decision Date: 19 July 1890
• Citation: 20 A. 245,17 R.I. 131
• Parties: PROVIDENCE INST. FOR SAVINGS v. BARR et al.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

20 A. 245

17 R.I. 131

PROVIDENCE INST. FOR SAVINGS

v. BARR et al.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

July 19, 1890.

Bill of inter pleader. On plea set down for hearing.

James Tillinghast and Theodore F. Tilling hast, for complainant. Charles H. Page and Franklin P. Owen, for respondents Anson M. Barr and Sabrina Barr. Binjamin W. Smith, for respondent Phanuel B. Carpenter.

STINESS J. The bill sets out that the complainant, having a deposit of $153 to the credit of "Sabrina Barr or Byron H. Spencer, or the survivor of them," was served with trustee process, November 14, 1887, in a suit brought by the respondent Carpenter against said Spencer in the district court of the sixth judicial district; that it made affidavit as such trustee, setting out the deposit as aforesaid; that, on appeal to the court of common pleas, final judgment was rendered, July 6, 1889, against said Spencer for $70 debt, and costs, taxed at $24.55, the complainant being charged as trustee to the amount of the judgment; that the respondent Carpenter, plaintiff in said suit, claims said amount under said judgment; that Sabrina Barr also claims the whole deposit as her own, and holds the bankbook issued therefor; that she has brought an action at law against the complainant in the district court for the amount of the deposit; also, that Spencer claims so much of the deposit as is not covered by the attachment. The respondent Carpenter files a plea setting up that the complainant has an adequate remedy at law, because, under Pub. Laws R. I. c. 433,¹ of May 2, 1884, said Sabrina Barr became a party to the action of Carpenter and Spencer, wherein the complainant was charged as trustee of said Spencer, and took no exception to the ruling of said court, whereby the judgment became final. These facts present the plain case where all the parties in interest were parties to the suit at law, in which, so far at least as the respondent Carpenter is concerned, the rights of the several parties were determined, upon the same facts now presented. The evident purpose of the statute referred to is to enable parties in interest to determine conflicting claims to a fund in one suit. Before the statute, one was liable to be charged as trustee of a defendant, and still liable to a suit by another who claimed the same fund. Although he might have a remedy by inter pleader, it was a somewhat cumbrous remedy; and the common desire for a more speedy settlement, no doubt, suggested the propriety of enabling the parties, where the facts set forth in a garnishee's affidavit are not disputed, to intervene, and submit their several claims at once to the court for adjudication, when a conflict should arise. At all events, this has been done. The claimant of a fund under foreign attachment has the right to become, and does become, a party to the suit on his own motion. Being a party, he is as much bound by the adjudication as the defendant in the suit; and thus the garnishee is protected as against both. The statute is not adapted to a case of facts in dispute of the affidavit, since that would involve the trial of one suit inside of another; but, where the issue is simply whether the garnishee, as a matter of law, should be charged as trustee for the defendant on a given state of facts, all the ends of a bill of inter pleader are accomplished to the extent of the attachment, and this we...