224 Pa. 292 | Pa. | 1909
Opinion by
This foreign attachment was issued against the American Insurance Company of Boston, a Massachusetts corporation, as defendant, and the Phcenix Insurance Company of New York, a New York corporation, as garnishee. The defendant. appeared and judgment was entered against it for want of a suf
If, under the attachment in his hands, the sheriff had undertaken to seize tangible property of the defendant in the possession of the garnishee beyond the jurisdiction of the court, such property would not have been bound by the attachment: Pennsylvania Railroad Company v. Pennock, 51 Pa. 244. By the act of June 13, 1836, the goods and effects of a defendant in a foreign attachment in the hands of the garnishee shall, after service of the writ, be bound by it and be in the officer’s power, and, if susceptible of seizure or manual occupation, the officer shall proceed to secure the same to answer and abide the judgment of the court in the case. If tangible goods are not in the possession of the garnishee within the jurisdiction of the court out of which the writ of attachment issued, they cannot be touched by that writ and are, therefore, not bound by it. An intangible thing- — a debt due from the garnishee to the defendant — cannot be actually seized anywhere, but, being an effect of the defendant in the hands of his creditor, is bound by the attachment from the time it is served. “All debts are payable everywhere, unless there be some special limitation or provision in respect to the payment; the rule being that debts as such have no locus or situs, but accompany the creditor everywhere:” 2 Parsons on Contracts (8th ed.), 702. It does not appear from the answers to the interrogatories that the debt due by the garnishee to the defendant had imposed upon it any “ special limitation or provision in respect to the payment.” It was payable generally, and unquestionably could have been sued on here in Pennsylvania, and, therefore, was attachable here. “This is the principle and effect of the best considered cases — the inevi
The foregoing is in accord with what was held in Fithian et al. v. New York & Erie R. R. Co., 31 Pa. 114, where the question was whether a debt due by a foreign corporation, which was evidenced by a judgment obtained against it in a foreign state, was attachable here at the instance of a creditor of the corporation’s creditor, and we decided that such debt could be attached and that the garnishee was not protected by paying over the amount of the judgment against it to the attorneys of its judgment creditor in the state of New York in disregard of the attachment. The attachment, it is'true, was one in execution under the act of June 16,1836, but that act, directing that a debt due to a defendant may be attached, provides that it is to be attached in the manner allowed in the case of a foreign attachment. If the debt was attachable in the attachment execution, it clearly would have been so in a foreign attachment.
The assignment of error is overruled and the judgment is affirmed.