Prudential Savings Bank of Birmingham v. Looney

• Decision Date: 03 June 1914
• Docket Number: 659
• Citation: 187 Ala. 19,65 So. 770
• Parties: PRUDENTIAL SAVINGS BANK OF BIRMINGHAM v. LOONEY.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

65 So. 770

187 Ala. 19

PRUDENTIAL SAVINGS BANK OF BIRMINGHAM v. LOONEY.

No. 659

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 3, 1914

Rehearing Denied June 30, 1914

Appeal from Circuit Court, Calhoun County; Hugh D. Merrill, Judge.

Action by Lillie Looney against the Endowment Department of the District Grand Lodge No. 23, G.U.O.O.F., on an endowment policy, in which plaintiff recovered a judgment, and in aid thereof procured an ancillary attachment or garnishment issued to the Prudential Savings Bank of Birmingham, alleging that the Endowment Department had money therein deposited in the name of John H. Wright, Grand Treasurer of the order. From a judgment condemning the money, the garnishee appeals. Reversed and remanded.

In the answer the garnishee set up that at the time of the service of the writ it was not indebted to the Endowment Department nor would it be indebted in the future, nor was it liable for the delivery of any personal property or the payment of any money. In response to a second garnishment garnishee answered on November 8, 1912, that there was a fund on deposit in the name of John G. Wright, trustee, and that in the opinion of the garnishee the said fund belonged to the District Grand Lodge No. 23, G.U.O.O.F., but that it was not indebted to the endowment fund, but says that the Endowment Department is merely an executive board, composed of certain officers of the Grand Lodge, which is a fraternal benefit society, and that whatever fund it has in its possession are deposited in the name of John G. Wright, as aforesaid, and garnishee believes that it belongs to the Grand Lodge, and that it amounts to $751.69, but otherwise garnishee is not indebted in any way, manner, or form to the judgment debtor. Further answering, it is alleged that such sum is retained by the garnishee on an express agreement executed on July 18, 1912 whereby said sum was to be retained as security for U.G Mason and W.H. Hadnott, to secure them against any liability on two certain bonds executed by said sureties for the said district grand lodge in the case of Annie Harvey against said Grand Lodge now pending in the Supreme Court, and the liability upon said bonds has not yet been determined.

C.B Powell, of Birmingham, for appellant.

Perdue & Drake, of Birmingham, for appellee.

ANDERSON C.J.

The final answer of the garnishee of November 8, 1912, and the amendment thereto, as appears in the jurat of November 29 1912, sets up the Grand Lodge as the owner or claimant of the fund in its hands, and notice seems to have been properly issued to said Grand Lodge, which came into court and filed its claim as authorized by the statute, and there seems to have been a trial of the right to the fund between it and the plaintiff, resulting in a judgment for the plaintiff. It is true that the answer of the garnishee, after setting up that the fund belonged to the Grand Lodge, does recite that it was deposited with it to be held as an indemnity to Mason & Hadnott. This did not suggest Mason & Hadnott as claimants of the fund, but, in effect, set up that it, the garnishee, had the right to hold said fund for a certain purpose. Moreover, before the judgment was...