Sadler v. Trustees of Prairie Lodge

• Decision Date: 10 May 1882
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: EMMA C. SADLER v. TRUSTEES OF PRAIRIE LODGE

59 Miss. 572

EMMA C. SADLER v. TRUSTEES OF PRAIRIE LODGE

Supreme Court of Mississippi

May 10, 1882

Appeal from the Chancery Court of Monroe County Hon. L. Haughton Chancellor.

Reversed and remanded.

Davis McFarland & Paine, for the appellant.

The decree of a domestic court of general jurisdiction cannot be attacked by a garnishee by parol evidence contradicting its recitals of service of process, and the authorities cited by opposing counsel are decrees of foreign courts or courts of limited jurisdiction or decrees void upon their faces. Green v. Creighton, 10 S. & M. 159; Coit v Haven, 30 Conn. 190; Dequindre v. Williams, 31 Ind. 444; Freeman on Judgments, §§ 124, 134; Drake on Attachment, §§ 696, 697.

Baxter McFarland argued for the appellant orally.

Houston & Reynolds, for the appellees.

The garnishees are stakeholders, and must avail themselves of the fatal defect in the judgment, or they will be compelled to pay twice, if it should hereafter be adjudged void. Oldham v. Ledbetter, 1 How. 43; Berry v. Anderson, 2 How. 649; Ford v. Woodward, 2 S. & M. 260; Ford v. Hurd, 4 S. & M. 683; Whitehead v. Henderson, 4 S. & M. 704; Webb v. Lea, 6 Yerger, 473; Thayer v. Tyler, 10 Gray, 164; Dew v. Bank of Alabama, 9 Ala. 323; Drake on Attachments, §§ 691-695. They are interested parties, and the judgment can be attacked in a collateral way. Want of jurisdiction in a court pronouncing a judgment always gives cause for setting it aside when it is sought to be enforced, or when any benefit is claimed under it. Enos v. Smith, 7 S. & M. 85; Tarleton v. Cox, 45 Miss. 430; Lane v. Wheless, 46 Miss. 666; Cotten v. McGehee, 54 Miss. 621: Harris v. Hardeman, 14 How. (U. S.) 334; Bissell v. Briggs, 9 Mass. 462; Borden v. Fitch, 15 John. 121; Starbuck v. Murray, 5 Wend. 148; Buchanan v. Rucker, 9 East, 192; Thompson v. Whitman, 18 Wall. 457.

R. O. Reynolds argued orally on the same side.

OPINION

CHALMERS, J.

Mrs. Sadler, having recovered a decree for five thousand dollars against the Mobile Life Insurance Co. in the Chancery Court of Monroe County, sued out a writ of garnishment against the trustees of Prairie Lodge upon the allegation that the lodge was indebted to the insurance company. The trustees of the lodge answered, acknowledging an indebtedness in the sum of seven thousand dollars, but averring that the decree rendered in Mrs. Sadler's favor in the Chancery Court of Monroe County was null and void, because there had been no service of process upon the insurance company through its officers or agents or otherwise. Mrs. Sadler moved to strike from this answer all that portion of it relating to the validity of the decree, and for a judgment against the garnishees on the acknowledgment of indebtedness. This being denied her, she prosecutes this appeal.

A garnishee not only may, but must, avail himself of any defect in the proceedings against his creditor, which render those proceedings a nullity; because, if he fails so to do, he may be compelled by his creditor to pay a second time; but the invalidity must appear upon the face of the record, and he cannot go outside of the record to demonstrate the invalidity by parol. An inspection of the record of the suit, which culminated in the rendition of the decree against the insurance company shows process regularly issued against the company, and a service upon the person named in the bill as its duly constituted agent, and a return of "executed" indorsed upon the writ by the sheriff. Upon this return a decree pro confesso was entered in these words, "it appearing to the court that process has been returned duly executed against the defendants, the Mobile Insurance Company, and that they are legally before the court," &c. Final decree for the amount found due followed on the next day after the entry of this pro confesso. Such a recital as this in the judgment or decree of a domestic court of general jurisdiction cannot be contradicted or questioned in a collateral proceeding. Cocks v. Simmons, 57 Miss. 183; Freeman on Judgments (3d ed.), § 131 and authorities cited. So long as such a judgment remains unreversed, and unassailed by some direct attack brought for...