100 Ga. 228 | Ga. | 1897
Stroup sued McPherson in justice’s court, for $67.80 on account, and garnished the Chattahoochee Brick Go., which .answered that it was indebted to McPherson a certain .amount. McPherson filed a claim to the fund, alleging that it was due him as a day-laborer and was his daily wages, and -therefore was exempt from garnishment. TJpon the trial of this issue in the claim case, the magistrate, after hearing the - evidence, decided that the fund was not due McPherson for -daily wages, that he was not a laborer, and that the fund was ■subject to garnishment. McPherson took the matter by ■ certiorari to the superior court, alleging that the judgment was contrary to. law and evidence. McPherson was the •only witness who testified upon the trial. His testimony as ■set out in the petition for certiorari was: that “a new verbal ■ contract was entered into between said Parrott and McPherson whereby said McPherson was to receive the sum of '$2.50 per day, solid time, and expenses, and that from dime to time said McPherson has drawn money from the
1, 2. If it manifestly appears, from an inspection of the entire record, that in any view of the case the judgment of the magistrate was the only one which could properly have been rendered, the dismissal of the certiorari sued out to reverse such judgment will not be reversed by this court, although the dismissal may have been based upon an erroneous reason. The court below based the dismissal
3. Under the facts as they appeared from all the evidence, and in view of the decision of this court in Oliver v. Macon Hardware Co., 98 Ga. 249, McPherson was not a “laborer” whose wages were exempt from garnishment. In that case the question considered was whether or not a clerk employed in a store, office, or other place of business, is a “laborer” within the meaning of sections 2792 and 4732 of the Civil Code; the former giving laborers a general lien for their labor upon the property of their employers, and the latter exempting the wages of laborers from the process of garnishment. Justice Lumpkin, who delivered the opinion, after reviewing all the former cases on the subject decided by this court, says that, “We think all the cases previously decided can be reconciled and harmonized by adopting the line indicated in the first head-note of the present case.” That head-note is as follows: “Primarily, a clerk in. a mercantile establishment is not a “laborer” in the sense in which that word is used in section 1974 of the code, even
Judgment affirmed.