Pennsylvania Railroad v. Peoples
Pennsylvania Railroad v. Peoples
Opinion of the Court
1. It was held, in Myres v. Smith, 29 Ohio St. 120, that a defendant in attachment can not ask or secure the discharge of the garnishee on the groijnd that his answer fails to show that he has property in his hands subject to garnishment. The plaintiff is not concluded by the answer of the garnishee. Where his disclosure is not satisfactory to the plaintiff, section 218 of the code authorizes the latter to proceed against him by action, and to recover a judgment for the amount of the property and credits of every kind of the defendant in the possession of the garnishee and “ for whatever amount he is shown to be indebted to the defendant.”
It follows, as a necessary consequence, that if the failure upon the part of the garnishee to disclose an indebtedness to the defendant, or the possession of property belonging to the latter, will not authorize the discharge of the garnishee, such failure constitutes no ground to discharge or vacate the attachment.
2. It was also alleged, as a ground for vacating the attachment, that the cause of action stated in the petition, and upon which the process of garnishment is founded,
No such defense has, as yet, been interposed. If the right to plead the statute in bar of the action should be waived by the company, it could not be made available to defeat a proceeding purely ancillary. But it is a-sufficient answer to the point urged to say that the fact that the action was barred, if true, was not made to appear.
The petition of the plaintiff was the only evidence offered in support of this ground of the motion; and the language, fairly interpreted, fails to show that the right to recover had been lost by' lapse of time.
3. The next objection relied on is that the claim of the plaintiff is not a debt or demand arising upon a contract, judgment, or decree, and, therefore, that proceedings in attachment will not lie. This conclusion is readily admitted, if the fact is as claimed. The ninth subdivision of section 191 of the civil code provides that an attachment shall not be granted on the ground that the-defendant is a foreign corporation, or a non-resident of this state, for any claim other than a debt or demand arising upon contract, judgment, or decree. The petition avers that the defendant below, at the time the plaintiff' below took passage upon its train, was a common carrier of passengers for hire and reward; and that, for a consideration in that behalf paid, the defendant promised and agreed to cai’ry her safely from Haseltine to Youngstown. It follows from this averment that the defendant was bound to furnish her suitable and proper means of access to the train upon which she . was to ride, and was bound to stop the train a sufficient length of time for her to get aboard. These are implied obligations and duties, growing out of the contract to carry. There is no doubt that the action might have been ■founded in tort upon the breach of the common-law duty to exercise due care to carry safely.
The plaintiff had her election to set out the promise, its
4. Another ground for the discharge of the attachment, and the one most confidently relied on by counsel for the plaintiff in error, is, that the garnishee, the Pennsylvania Company, being organized under the laws of Pennsylvania, is not liable to the process of garnishment provided by section 200 of the code (S. & S. 550). The claim is founded on what is alleged to be a correct interpretation of the language of that section ; and if the fact is that the garnishee is a non-resident of the state, exercising no corporate powers or functions within its limits, the conclusion would doubtless follow that the company is not within the class of persons or corporations that are made liable by that section to garnishee process. Squair v. Shea, 26 Ohio St. 645.
In McGregor v. Erie Ry. Co., 35 N. J. (Law) 97, it is said that “ the right to run the road is as much a part, of the franchise as the right to build it.”. In McGregor qui tam v. The Erie Ry. Co., ibid. 118, an action qui tarn was brought in New Jersey against the Erie Railway Company for taking unlawful tolls on parts of its lines within that state, and it was held that while the company was a foreign coi'poration, it was, at the same time, “ domestic to the full extent of the powers and franchises confirmed and invested in it, in New Jersey;” that “a corporation may have a two-fold organization, and be, so far as its relations to the state are concerned, both foreign and domestic. See State v. Northern Central Ry. Co., 18 Md. 193; Green’s Brice’s Ultra Vires, 546, et passim; Pennsylvania Railroad Co. v. Sly, 65 Penna. St. 205; Balt. and Ohio R. R. Co. v. Gallahue’s Adm’rs., 12 Gratt. 655; A. & W. Sprague v. The H., P. & F. R. R. Co., 5 R. I. 233.
By section 24 of the general incorporation act of 1852 as amended March 19, 1869 (66 Ohio L. 32), it is, among other things, provided, “ that any railroad company organized in pursuance of law, either within this or any other state, may lease or purchase any part or all of any railroad, the whole or a part of which is in this state, and constructed, owned, or leased by any other company, if said companies’ lines of said road are contiguous, or connected at a point either within or without this state, upon such
Leave refused.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.