123 Ark. 360 | Ark. | 1916
Each of the two appellants, Home Land & Loan Company, and Benton County Hardware Company, recovered a judgment at law against J. T. Powell for money due on contract, and each caused to be issued and served a writ of garnishment on the Farmers State Bank of Rogers, each of the writs being issued upon allegations to the effect that the garnishee had money of J. T. Powell on deposit and was indebted to him., The garnishee filed an answer stating that it had on deposit to the credit of J. T. Powell the sum of $1,466.93 and was-therefore indebted to him in that sum. Appellee, E. A. Routh, intervened in each of the garnishment proceedings and filed a plea stating that the sum of money in the hands' of the garnishee to the credit of J. T. Powell was not the property of Powell, but was the property of thi intervener, and not subject to garnishment or other process for the debts due from the defendant Powell. The two cases were consolidated and tried together before the court sitting as a jury, and the court found in favor of the appellee, as intervener in the action, and discharged the garnishee.
The evidence adduced at the trial tends to establish the fact that the funds deposited in the bank to the credit of the defendant Powell were derived from the sale of a tract of land in Benton County by Powell to one Thompson, and that said land, when originally purchased by Powell, Was -paid for by appellee Routh, upon an express agreement that Powell was acting as agent of appellee in the purchase and was to take the title in his own name for convenience, and that when the land should be -sold the funds should be accounted for as the property of appellee Routh. In other words, the testimony is that the appellee furnished the money with which to buy the land; that Powell acted as his agent, taking the title in his own name, and that he deposited same upon appellee’s direction and held the money as agent for the latter. During the time that the land was held in thé name of Powell he occupied the same', but the testimony shows that it was under an agreement with appellee to pay rent. The land was sold to Thompson for a consideration of $1,500, of which he paid $185 in cash and gave his note for $200 and transferred a note of a Mrs. Vandover for $1,115 and accrued interest, which was secured by a mortgage on another tract of land which Thompson had sold to Mrs. Vandover. Powell sold and transferred Thompson’s note for $200, and testified that this was done under the direction of appellee. Mrs. Vandover paid the amount of her note into the bank to be placed to the credit of Powell when he should satisfy the mortgage. All of the money was placed in the bank as a general deposit to Powell’s credit, and in the aggregate amounted to the sum set forth in the garnishee’s answer. The writs of g*arnishment were sued out and served two or three days after the money was placed to the credit of Powell. As soon as the money was placed there, or at least the amount paid over by Mrs. Vandover, Powell gave appellee a check for $1,175, and appellee sent it to his bank in another town for collection and credit, but the garnishment was served before the money could be collected. Appellee and Powell each testified that the remainder of the money in the bank was left there to Powell’s credit, at appellee’s request, for use by appellee subsequently for another purpose.
This, in substance, is the state of facts to which the proof of appellee was directed, and it is sufficient to warrant a finding that those were the facts in the case, and that Powell held the funds as agent of appellee Routh. The question in the case is, therefore, whether under those facts as found'by the court the funds were subject to garnishment for the debt of Powell.
The case of Morrill v. Raymond, 28 Kan. 415, is directly in point. There certain funds were paid over by Speer & Co. to their agent, Orth, to be used in purchasing corn, and the latter deposited the money in bank in his own name to be checked out as he made purchases of corn for his principal. There was an attempt to reach the funds by garnishment issued at the instance of Orth’s creditors, and the court held that the money was not subject to garnishment for the debt of Orth, notwithstanding the fact that the funds stood as a general deposit in his name.
The Supreme Court of Kansas, in disposing of the case, said: “The money on deposit was Speer & Co.’s, not Orth’s. * * * A creditor of Orth, therefore, was not. entitled either by attachment or garnishment to have the deposit in the bank held by Orth as a fund for the use and as the property of Speer & Co. applied to the payment of Orth’s debts. Orth had no right to apply this fund in whole or in part, to pay or reduce the judgment of Raymond against him, and the judgment creditor stood in no better position than the depositor. * * * If the claim of Raymond had accrued originally upon the faith and credit that the money on deposit was Orth’s individual property, another and a different question would be presented for adjudication; but this we find to be distinctly and fully negatived by the fact that Raymond’s judgment was obtained long prior to the deposit. ”
So it can be said in this case that the evidence does not show that the credit was extended by appellants on the faith of the money deposited being the property of Powell, and the evidence warrants the conclusion reached by the trial court that the transaction was conducted in good faith.
See, also, to the same effect, Jones v. Bank, 44 Pa. St. 253; Ingersoll v. First National Bank, 10 Minn. 396; Des Moines Cotton Mill Company v. Cooper, 93 Ia. 654. It follows, therefore, that the trial court was correct in holding that the funds were not subject to garnishment for the debt of Powell.
Affirmed.