Wolff v. Conroy

• Decision Date: 17 March 1885
• Citation: 17 Mo.App. 36
• Parties: M. A. WOLFF ET AL., Respondents, v. JOHN H. VETTE; M. J. CONROY, Interpleader, Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

17 Mo.App. 36

M. A. WOLFF ET AL., Respondents,

v.JOHN H. VETTE; M. J. CONROY, Interpleader, Appellant.

St. Louis Court of Appeals, Missouri.

Mar. 17, 1885.

APPEAL from the St. Louis Circuit Court, HORNER, J.

Reversed and remanded.

W. E. JONES, for the appellant.

JOHN O'GRADY and E. B. WOLFF, for the respondents.

ROMBAUER, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an action instituted by attachment before a justice of the peace by plaintiffs against one Conroy. One Vette was summoned as garnishee of the defendant in the attachment, and answered denying all indebtedness. His answer was denied by plaintiffs, and upon the issue thus formed the cause was tried, and judgment rendered against the garnishee for $125.00 and costs. From this judgment the garnishee appealed to the circuit court. In the circuit court Maria J. Conroy, the appellant herein, obtained leave to interplead for the debt seized in the hands of the garnishee, and filed her written interplea averring that the debt seized in the hands of the garnishee was not the money or property of her husband, the defendant, in the attachment suit, but was her sole and separate estate, and not subject to attachment for the debts of her husband. The interplea prayed judgment, etc.

The interplea of appellant was not denied by the plaintiff, but the court, against plaintiffs' objections, heard evidence in support of the interplea, and upon such hearing dismissed the interplea at the costs of the interpleader. After an ineffectual attempt to set aside the judgment the interpleader has appealed to this court.

Proceedings in cases of interpleader upon attachment are in the nature of distinct suits, and judgments rendered therein for or against the interpleader are subject to review on appeal, though the attachment, or garnishment, may be still pending.-- Weisenecker v. Kepler, 7 Mo. 54; Brennan v. O'Driscoll, 33 Mo. 372, 374. Although the entries are somewhat irregular in this case they indicate a final judgment against the interpleader. As far as the record shows, the jurisdiction of the court in regard to the interplea, was exhausted, and the question which it decided had gone from its control, and this is the test of a final judgment for the purpose of determining the right of appeal in this state.-- State ex rel. v. Sutterfield, 54 Mo. 394; Gale v. Michie, 47 Mo. 326.

The cause being properly before us on appeal, we have carefully examined the record for the purpose of determining its merits. We find that no declarations of law were asked or given on behalf of either party, and that the uncontroverted testimony offered on behalf of the interpleader tended to prove that the debt seized in the hands of the garnishee, was due by the garnishee to her, and not to the defendant in the attachment. In view of this we are at a loss to discover any grounds on which the judgment of the trial court can be supported, unless the points made here by respondents are tenable.

The first of these points is, that funds in the hands of a garnishee are not the...