48 Md. 427 | Md. | 1878
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The appellees, having obtained a judgment against William H. Trego, issued upon it an attachment by way of execution. This attachment was laid in the hands of the People’s Bank of Baltimore, to bind the interest of the defendant, Trego, in a sum of money standing upon the books of the bank to the credit of the firm of Trego -& Kirkland, of which firm Trego was a partner.
The question then arises, is a debt due to a co-partnership liable to attachment at the suit of a creditor of one of the partners ?
If the attachment had been laid upon the tangible effects of the firm, there would be no doubt of the right to do so, for all the authorities concur that the property of a firm may be sold for the debt of one of the partners. When sold the vendee purchases and is substituted to nothing more than the interest of the partner, which afterwards becomes the subject of ascertainment by a proper adjustment of the respective interests of the partners. The rights of co-partners and creditors of the firm' are not thereby sacrificed or disturbed. But where a debt is the subject of attachment, the judgment, if obtained against the garnishee, changes the right to the fund without any settlement of partnership accounts, and vests in the attaching creditor an absolute claim to the payment over to him of so much money. In Drake on Attachment, sec. 567, the author says, “The attachment of a debt due to a
We have quoted at length from this case, because the views there expressed seem to he specially appropriate to the case before us. The proceeding of attachment in this State is essentially a legal proceeding and in no way appropriate to ascertain and settle the equitable rights between the garnishee and defendant, or to ascertain by adjusting the partnership affairs, the true interest of the defendant in the fund attached. The only judgment which could be given against the garnishee would be for a proportion of the money due the partnership, — that proportion to be measured by the number of the members composing the firm, — the amount due the attaching creditor. This would certainly be against the weight of authorities in this country, and in most cases productive of the greatest injustice.
In the cases of Sheedy vs. The Second National Bank, Garn., 62 Missouri, 18, and Myers vs. Smith, et al., 29
The only eases in this country in which it is claimed a contrary doctrine is held, and to which we have been referred, are the cases of McCarty vs. Emlen, 2 Dallas, 277; Knox vs. Schepler, 2 Hill, 595, and Wallace vs. Patterson, 2 H. & McH., 463. The case of McCarty and Emlen is a very old one, having been decided in 1797. If it has not been expressly overruled, it certainly has been very much shaken. by the case of Knerr vs. Hoffman, 65 Pa., 126, in which the opinion of the Court was delivered by Judge Sharswood. So much so, that the doctrine it announces can hardly be considered as the present recognized doctrine of the Courts of Pennsylvania. And in this view we think we are strengthened by what is said by Judge Agnew in the case of Alter vs Brooke and Barrington, 9 Phila. Reps., 258. But apart from this, the doctrine announced in that case does not recommend itself to our judgment, and we are not disposed to adopt it. The case of Knox vs. Schepler, 2 Hill’s Reps., like the case in 22 Md., 30, is one where the defendant was the sole surviving partner of the firm of Gable, Cowell & Schepler. It therefore rested upon a different principle from
But the case of Wallace vs. Patterson, 2 Harris & McHenry, 463, is relied upon to sustain this attachment. It is to be said of that case which was decided as far hack
So satisfied are we upon the ground of reason and expediency, and the great weight of authority that the partnership credits of a continuing partnership should not be subjected, to the process of attachment at the suit of a separate creditor of one of the partners, that we cannot adopt the case of Wallace vs. Patterson to the extent which is claimed for it.
In our opinion then, in a case like the present where-the partnership is a continuing one, and where there has been no adjustment of partnership affairs, a debt due the partnership cannot be taken by garnishment to pay the individual debt of one of the members of the firm.
This judgment will therefore be reversed and judgment entered for the appellant.
Judgment reversed, and judgment for appellant.