The opinion of the Court was delivered
Our system of levying executions upon debts due to the defendant, or deposits of money made by him, or of goods or chattels pawned, pledged, or demised, is established by the Act of 16th June, 1836. By that Act it is declared that “the same may be attached and levied in satisfaction of the plaintiff’s judgment, in the manner allowed in the ease of foreign attachment. Our proceedings in foreign attachment are founded on the custom of London. By that custom “if a plaint be affirmed against any man, and he is returned nihil, and the plaintiff will surmise that any other man who is within the city is debtor to the defendant, in any sum, he shall have his garnishment against him, for him to come and answer if he be indebted in the form which the other hath alleged Priv. Land. 253. By this custom, and under the Act of Assembly regulating foreign attachments, the rule, in the ease of attaching a debt, is to serve the attachment upon “the debtor to the defendant;” the “garnishment” shall be “against him,” and not against the person who merely holds the evidences of the debt. In Stewart v. McMinn, 5 W. & Ser. 100, there has been a seeming departure from this rule. In that case, an assignee for creditors, holding
The objections to the judgment against the assignee for the sum, of money admitted to be in his hands, are not sustained.
It is considered that so much of the judgment of the District Court as directs that the plaintiff’s judgments shall be discharged from the moneys coming into the hands of the garnishee from the book accounts, judgments, &c., amounting to $5158.22, assigned to him by the said J. M. Elliott, be reversed and annulled.
It is further considered that the residue of the judgment of said Court be affirmed.