22581 | Ga. Ct. App. | Aug 23, 1933
The Bibb Investment Company brought suit in the municipal court of Macon against Jim Sampson on a salary assignment of $24. The case was tried before the judge, 'without the intervention of a jury, upon the following agreed statement of facts: The defendant admitted “the execution and delivery to the plaintiff of the bill of sale and assignment for $24, and the collection of the said account so sold and assigned from the Georgia, Southern & Florida Bailway Company by the defendant, and the failure and refusal to deliver said money to the plaintiff is admitted by the defendant.” The plaintiff admitted “that the said bill of sale and assignment in question is-a partial assignment of the wages earned by and due to the defendant by the Georgia, Southern & Florida Bailway Company, and the defendant’s adjudication in bankruptcy and the listing of the liability, and that the bill of sale and assignment is unassented to by the debtor.” The judge found for the plaintiff in the amount sued for; the defendant presented a petition for certiorari. The judge of the superior court refused to sanction the certiorari, and the case was brought to this court.
The decision in Etheredge v. Wilson, 41 Ga. App. 432 (153 S.E. 230" court="Ga. Ct. App." date_filed="1930-03-04" href="https://app.midpage.ai/document/etheredge-v-wilson-5620766?utm_source=webapp" opinion_id="5620766">153 S. E. 230), was rendered by Division No. 1 of the Court of Appeals of Georgia on March 4, 1930, and was adhered to on a rehearing on May 14, 1930, Judge Bloodworth dissenting. It appears from Wilson v. Etheredge, supra, that “E. P. Wilson brought his action in the municipal court of Macon against L. C. Etheredge, alleging that the defendant had assigned to him $27.50 due defendant by the Central of Georgia Eailway Company for wages or salary already earned by him in the employment of that company; that by virtue of said assignment the title to the money was in plaintiff; that defendant collected said sum from his employer and converted it to his own use by refusing to deliver it to plaintiff; and that defendant' was liable to plaintiff in the sum of $27.50 because of said conversion.”
The Court of Appeals in the Etheredge case, supra, based its ruling upon the following principle: “A partial assignment of wages, not assented to by the debtor, will not support an action brought by the assignee against the assignor for a conversion of the wages assigned. The partial assignment of wages in this case did-not put such title in the wages assigned in the assignee as will support the action for conversion brought against the assignor by the assignee.” As authority for its holding the Court of Appeals cited King v. Central of Ga. Ry. Co., 135 Ga. 225 (69 S.E. 113" court="Ga." date_filed="1910-10-11" href="https://app.midpage.ai/document/robinson-v-state-5577496?utm_source=webapp" opinion_id="5577496">69 S. E. 113, 22 Ann. Cas. 672), and Rivers v. Wright, 117 Ga. 81 (43 S.E. 499" court="Ga." date_filed="1903-02-07" href="https://app.midpage.ai/document/rivers-v-wright--co-5572286?utm_source=webapp" opinion_id="5572286">43 S. E. 499), the first and second headnotes of the case last cited being as follows: “A partial assignment of a debt will not vest in the assignee such a title to the portion of the debt assigned as can be enforced in a common-law action, unless the debtor assented to the assignment. . . Such an assignment is, however, enforceable in equity, though the debtor did not assent thereto, provided all parties at interest are before the court so that the rights of each in the fund in controversy may be determined in one suit and settled by one decree.”
On February 13, 1932, the Supreme Court of Georgia, in Wilson
The question of bankruptcy is not now before this court, as no stay of suit was either denied or granted in the court below.
Judgment reversed.