4 Watts 390 | Pa. | 1835
The opinion of the Court was delivered by
—Some doubts are to be found in the ancient English authorities as to the right of a person to levy a foreign attachment on property in his own hands, under the customs of London and other places, but the weight of authority is that it may be done; and precedents of the mode of pleading in such cases may be seen in Coke’s Entries 139, b, and Rastell’s Entries, Detle, 156, b. That such proceeding is maintainable under our act of assembly, was determined in Graighle v. Notnagel, 1 Pet. Rep. 245. So far as it is a legal remedy against an absent debtor for the purpose of compelling an appearance or securing a priority, it ought to be allowed,
Judgment affirmed.
The custom of London in this respect seems to have been made a question by the pleadings in Rastell’s Ent. 156, b. The defendant there pleaded in bar a foreign attachment of money in his own hands, and stated the custom tobe, that if a bill of debt was affirmed, summons issued, &c. The plaintiff replied, stating the custom to be, that if the bill of debt was affirmed and the defendant in the bill was indebted to the plaintiff at the time of affirming, summons issued, &c., and concluded by averring that at the time of affirming, the defendant’s bill, the plaintiff was not indebted to the defendant in the sum claimed, or any part thereof. Issue was taken on the last custom, and the court awarded that the recorder should state the custom, but nothing further appears. In Lord Coke’s Entries 139, b, the plea states the custom in the same manner as in the foregoing plea, but it contains an averment that the plaintiffs were indebted to the defendants in the sum for which the attachment was levied.