Webb v. Read
Webb v. Read
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Oran Webb filed his bill against D. D. McClure and others, as owners of the Steamboat New Ark, all of whom are charged to be non-residents of the State, and against Read and Son, for the purpose of recovering from the owners of the boat $175, which is charged to be due him from them, for advances made to pay expenses on her passage from New Orleans to Louisville, and subjecting a' fund belonging to the owners, in the bands of Read & Son, residents of Louisville, to its payment.
The bill was not sworn to, nor any order asked or made by the Chancellor, injoining Read & Son from paying over the funds in their hands, or attaching the same. But the counsel of the complainant made an indorsement on the subpeena, apprising Read & Son of the object of the bill, and requiring them to retain in their hands a specified amount, sufficient to cover the complainant’s demand. Read & Son answered the bill admitting that there were funds in their hands at the time of the service of the subpoena with the indorsement, but that they had since paid them over to the order of the owners. The Chancellor, upon the hearing, dismissed the bill, and the complainant has appealed to this Court.
The first section of the act of 1837, provides for proceeding against two classes of defendants, first, against non-residents of the State; secondly, against residents who had left the Stale to avoid the service of legal process, or had “been without the Stale” for a term of the Court, by which the service of ordinary process was rendered impracticable. To give jurisdiction to the Court in the latter class of cases, an allegation must be made and supported by affidavit, that the absent defendant had left the Stale to avoid the service of legal process, or had
The second section provides two modes of proceeding, both of which are made effectual: First, by an indorsement on thesubpcena of the nature and intention of the suit, and the service thereof, with such indorsement, on the resident defendant. Secondly, by obtaining an order from the Chancellor for an injunction, or the seizure of the effects in the resident’s hands, and both these modes are applicable to' both classes of cases provided for in the first section, and are both equally effectual, if the resident who owes or has effects in his hands at the time of the service, and is good and responsible for the amount. For from the time of the service of the subpcena upon him, the proceeding is pendente lite as to him, and as to the effects in his hands, and he cannot, by disposing of the same, or paying away the funds to any one, evade the ■decree, or eseapo from his personal responsibility to the same. Nor does this provision of the statute introduce any new rule as to the responsibility of the resident, or the liability of the effects in his hands, for before the ■statute, and without the indorsement required, the resident defendant could not pay away the funds or dispose of ■the effects in his hands, after the service of subpcena upon him, so as to evade the decree or escape from it, as was, in effect, determined by this Court in the case of Scott vs McMillan, 1 Littell’s Rep. 302. The statute provides an additional security to him by authorizing the indorsement to be made, by which he is more effectually warned ■of the nature of the proceeding, and the amount which, he is required to ■retain in his hands. Before, he was
Decree reversed, and cause remanded, that a decree may be rendered against Reed and Son for the amount of the complainant’s demand and costs. And the appellant is entitled to his costs in this Court.
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