137 A. 815 | Pa. | 1927
Argued April 20, 1927. Plaintiff issued a writ of foreign attachment which was served upon the garnishee named therein. At the time it was served, the garnishee had nothing in its hands belonging to the defendant; subsequently, before the return day of the writ and before the filing of interrogatories, money belonging to defendant did come into the hands of the garnishee. The question to be decided is: Did the attachment bind this money? The court below determined that it did not and discharged a rule for judgment against the garnishee; plaintiff has appealed.
When account is taken of the purpose served by and the object in the use of the writ of foreign attachment, the logical correctness of the conclusion of the court below becomes manifest. Its purpose is to seize property of a nonresident defendant which is within the jurisdiction, and the object in its use is that, through its grasp on his property, the defendant may be compelled to come into the jurisdiction to meet the debt due: Raymond v. Leishman,
The cases cited by appellant as authority for the position that its attachment is good can all be readily distinguished except Silverwood v. Bellas, 8 Watts 420. That case is no longer an authority and we now expressly overrule it. As to the others, all except one of them are concerned with attachment executions and not writs of foreign attachment. As will be readily apprehended the object to be attained by a writ of foreign attachment is not the same as that sought by an attachment execution. Franklin Fire Ins. Co. v. West, 8 W. S. 350, was a foreign attachment, where, at the time of service of the writ, the garnishee was liable to the defendant under a fire insurance policy, a fire having occurred and it was only the amount of the indebtedness that was settled or became fixed subsequent to the service. We will not increase the length of this opinion by an analysis of each of these cases.* Even if they held, as appellant's counsel argue they do, they would be out of harmony with sound reason when the purpose of the writ of foreign attachment is considered and would not be followed. The character of foreign attachment as a proceeding in rem cannot be transmuted into an action in personam against the garnishee unless the initial *43 requisite of jurisdiction exists, namely, property or a right in property, of the defendant, in the hands of the garnishee at the time of service.
The order of the court below discharging the rule for judgment against the garnishee is affirmed at appellant's cost.