Schooley v. Schooley

• Decision Date: 25 October 1918
• Docket Number: No. 31800.,31800.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court
• Parties: SCHOOLEY v. SCHOOLEY ET AL. (CHICAGO & N. W. RY. CO., GARNISHEE).

184 Iowa 835

169 N.W. 56

SCHOOLEY

v.SCHOOLEY ET AL. (CHICAGO & N. W. RY. CO., GARNISHEE).

No. 31800.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Dec. 11, 1917.

Dissenting Opinion, Oct. 25, 1918.

Appeal from District Court, Woodbury County; W. G. Sears, Judge.

The opinion states the case. Affirmed.

Salinger, Stevens, and Ladd, JJ., dissenting.Kass Bros. and Foster G. Iddings, all of Sioux City, for appellant.

George G. Yeaman, of Sioux City, for appellee.

Sargant, Strong & Strouble, of Sioux City, James C. Davis, of Chicago, and George E. Hise, of Des Moines, for garnishee.

WEAVER, J.

The plaintiff, Belle Schooley, and the defendant were formerly wife and husband. On January 9, 1912, in an action brought by the plaintiff against said defendant, and then pending in the district court of Woodbury county, a decree of divorce was entered. In the same proceeding the plaintiff secured judgment against defendant for a stated sum as alimony, payable in installments during her life or until she marry again. She has not in fact contracted any marriage since the divorce. On December 10, 1913, the defendant married another woman, with whom he has ever since lived and maintained family relations in Woodbury county. Certain installments of the judgment for alimony are past due and unpaid. For several years the defendant has been and still is employed in the service of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company at a stated salary or wages payable monthly. In August, 1914, plaintiff caused an execution to issue upon such judgment for alimony, under which writ the railway company was garnished as a supposed debtor of the defendant; the purpose of such garnishment being to reach and subject to the payment of such judgment the wages earned by him in the company's service. Defendant appeared in such proceeding and moved to discharge the garnishee on the ground that his wages were exempt to him as a married man and head of a family. On the hearing upon this motion the court sustained the claim of exemption because of his status as a married man and head of a family, and ordered the discharge of the garnishee. In August, 1916, plaintiff caused another execution to issue and the railway company to be again garnished thereunder. The railway company answered, showing that at the date of the garnishment it was indebted to defendant in the sum of $166.91 for wages earned by him within the period of 90 days preceding. Again defendant appeared and moved to discharge the garnishee upon the same ground of exemption. This motion was also sustained, and the garnishee ordered discharged, and from such order and from judgment this appeal has been taken.

The foregoing sufficiently indicates the one question presented for our consideration: May a divorced husband who has married again and thus becomes the head of a family avail himself of the exemption provided by Code, § 4011, against an execution issued upon a general judgment for alimony rendered in favor of his first wife? Counsel for appellant take the negative of the proposition, and in support of their position have filed a very well-prepared brief marshaling the authorities on which they rely, and discussingvery lucidly the principles which they believe to be applicable to the undisputed facts in this record. That some of the precedents cited do appear to hold substantially as counsel claim is to be admitted, but that they should be accepted by us as controlling authority we are not ready to concede. Taking the country over there are perhaps no two states in which the exemption statutes are so nearly identical that the construction and effect given to one in one jurisdiction may be said to be satisfactory precedent for the construction and effect of another in another jurisdiction. Again, there is no uniform policy of the courts in general with respect to these laws. In some they are construed and applied with great liberality in favor of the debtor and his family, while in others the tendency is to the opposite extreme and the debtor gets little which is not assured to him by the strict and technical letter of the statute. Exemptions being strictly creatures of the statute, the question when the right exists and the scope of such right resolves itself in final analysis into one of construction of the legislative language, and in such matters the courts of each state ordinarily adhere to their own views of the expressed legislative intent. Our exemption statute (Code, § 4008), first provides that, “if the debtor is a resident of this state and the head of a family, he may hold exempt from execution” certain specified items of personal property, varying to some extent as it shall appear that the debtor is a farmer, mechanic, lawyer or teamster, etc. Sections 4009 and 4010 exempt pension money and homes bought with pension money. Section 4011 is as follows:

“The earnings of a debtor, who is a resident of the state and the head of a family, for his personal services, or those of his family, at any time within ninety days next preceding the levy, are exempt from liability for debt.”

[1] In the case before us the divorce had effect to restore the husband and wife to the status of unmarried persons, with full and unrestricted right to each to marry again the same as if their marriage relation had never existed. So long as he retained that status defendant's wages were, of course, subject to garnishment because he was not one of the protected class, for while he was a resident of the state he was not the head of a family. But when he married, as he legally might, to a woman having the legal right to take him as her husband and established their home in the county he became literally and undisputably the head of a family and a resident of the state, and his right to the exemption of his wages is too clear for argument, unless he is to be excluded therefrom upon the theory advanced by counsel and to which we shall now give attention.

The point so made is that the language of the statute is that “the earnings of a debtor who is a resident of the state and the head of a family, for his personal services, * * * are exempt from liability for debt,” and it is argued that this does not include exemption from liability for payment of a judgment for alimony because an allowance of alimony is not in a legal sense a “debt.” Cases are cited which do draw a distinction between a claim for alimony and debt, but very few will be found holding that a claim for alimony which has been reduced to final judgment is not the debt of him against whom it is rendered. On the contrary, the great weight of authority is decidedly the other way. Speaking of the entry of a decree for alimony, the Supreme Court of the United States says, “When this is done it becomes a debt of record.” Barber v. Barber, 21 How. 595, 16 L. Ed. 226. Speaking of absolute and limited divorces, the Massachusetts court says, “The judgment for alimony in either case creates a debt of record in favor of the wife.” Chase v. Chase, 105 Mass. 388. A debt is something due or payable from one person to another, and may be created by contract or judgment. Silk Co. v. Spinning Co., 154 N. C. 421, 70 S. E. 820, Ann. Cas. 1916A, 897;Arbaugh v. Shockney, 34 Ind. App. 268, 71 N. E. 232, 72 N. E. 669;Mayor v. Hurt, 140 Ala. 394, 37 South. 220, 103 Am. St. Rep. 45;Lothrop v. Parke, 202 Mass. 104, 88 N. E. 666; Ex parte Kinsolving, 135 Mo. App. 631, 116 S. W. 1071;In re Van Orden (D. C.) 96 Fed. 88;Mertz v. Berry, 101 Mich. 32, 59 N. W. 445, 24 L. R. A. 789, 45 Am. St. Rep. 379. Our own cases are quite in harmony with this view. See Whitcomb v. Whitcomb, 52 Iowa, 718, 2 N. W. 1000. In this last-cited case the wife obtained a general judgment for alimony and afterwards sought to enforce it against the husband's homestead. This was denied, the court saying, “The judgment is but a debt, and the plaintiff is not entitled to precedence or greater rights than would be the holder of any other judgment.” See, also, Byers v. Byers, 21 Iowa, 268. Indeed, we think we need look no further than to the statute itself to see that the words “debts” and “debtor” are used in their more general and less technical sense, and that the statute provides for exemption for execution issued upon every and any general judgment against the head of a family for the payment of money. In Code, § 4008, which is the section providing the general list of exemptions, the word “debtor” is repeatedly employed. The exemptions are expressly made in favor of the “debtor” if a resident of the state. It is the “debtor's” wearing apparel, trunks, shotgun, family Bible, portraits, church pew, burial lot, tools implements, team, etc., which are secured from seizure under execution or attachment, and if the appellant's theory be correct that a judgment rendered against a litigant upon any other claim than that of a debt by contract in its restricted technical sense is not a debt within the meaning of this statute, then the door is opened to stripping the impoverished debtor and his family of every earthly possession,save perhaps the clothes upon their backs, in favor of any person who may happen to recover judgment against him upon any cause of action not originating in contract. We feel very sure that such is not the legislative intent. One against whom a judgment for the payment of money is rendered is universally known and spoken of as a “judgment debtor,” and the claim against him is recognized as a “judgment debt.” It is, to use the language of the cases already cited, a “debt of record,” or, as called by some, “a judicial debt of record.” It is a debt--a binding obligation to pay a stated sum of money fixed by judicial determination. If before judgment the plaintiff's claim was unliquidated and the obligation to pay was imperfect, that condition ceased with the judgment entry. What was before uncertain is now certain. A writ of execution is nothing less or more than a process by which such debt may be...