Willard v. Sturm

• Decision Date: 21 January 1896
• Citation: 65 N.W. 847,96 Iowa 555
• Parties: A. H. WILLARD v. E. H. STURM, Defendant, and THE CHICAGO, ROCK ISLAND & PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY, Garnishee, Appellant
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

65 N.W. 847

96 Iowa 555

A. H. WILLARD v. E. H. STURM, Defendant, and THE CHICAGO, ROCK ISLAND & PACIFIC RAILWAY COMPANY, Garnishee, Appellant

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

January 21, 1896

Appeal from Pottawattamie District Court.--HON. WALTER I. SMITH Judge.

This is a garnishment proceeding in which plaintiff is seeking to subject to the payment of a judgment he holds against defendant Sturm certain wages due Sturm from the railroad company. The lower court rendered judgment against the garnishee, and it appeals.

Affirmed.

Wright & Baldwin for appellant.

O. D Wheeler for appellee.

OPINION

Deemer, J.

The case involves less than one hundred dollars, and comes to us on the following certificate, made by the trial judge in the manner required by law: "This was an action commenced before Ovide Vien, justice of the peace in and for Kane township, Pottawattamie county, Iowa by A. H. Willard, a resident of Iowa. E. H. Sturm was an employe of the Chicago Rock Island & Pacific Railway Co., residing in and earning his wages in Kansas. As head of a family his wages were exempt in said state. The action was commenced December 13 1893. The company answered seventy-seven dollars and seventeen cents due. Judgment was rendered in favor of plaintiff for that amount on February 20, 1894, from which an appeal was taken to this court. Subsequent to the commencement of this action in this state, suit was commenced by E. H. Sturm, in justice's court in state of Kansas, for his wages, held under the garnishment proceedings in the Iowa case. The pending garnishment case was set up as a defense in the Kansas court, but, following Railway Co. v. Sharitt, 43 Kan. 375 (23 P. 430), judgment was rendered against the company, on February 5, 1894, for full amount of Sturm's wages. An appeal was taken from said judgment, which is still pending. Upon appeal to the district court in the present case, the above-described judgment was set up as a defense in said garnishment proceeding. The exemption laws of Kansas were also pleaded as a defense under section 3, chapter 102, of the Laws of the Twenty-fifth General Assembly of Iowa. That said case was submitted to me as judge of the said district court, upon an agreed statement of facts embodying the facts above set out, and judgment was rendered by me in favor of A. H. Willard, plaintiff, and against the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company, as garnishee, and entered accordingly. That the questions hereby certified to in this cause involve the determination of the following questions of law, upon which it is desirable to have the opinion of the supreme court of Iowa: First. Is the rendition of the judgment in the Kansas court, based upon the amount due from garnishee to defendant as wages earned as aforesaid, a bar in a garnishment proceeding in this state, instituted prior to the commencement of the action in Kansas, covering the same wages, for which judgment was rendered in said Kansas court? Second. Where garnishment proceedings are commenced in Iowa attaching wages not at that time exempt, but subsequently, and before judgment upon appeal, rendered exempt by an act of the legislature of Iowa and where, prior to rendition of final judgment in the garnishment case, a judgment is rendered in the courts of another state, in an action commenced subsequent to such garnishment, covering the same wages, would such a suit, so started in the foreign court, have the effect of abating the garnishment proceedings in this state, pending the final determination of the case in the...