Baust v. Commonwealth Bank

Driver, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The joint trial of this attachment case, ami the opposing claim of property, was before the court without a jury, and resulted in a verdict and judgment for the claimant of the attached funds as to the greater part of the assets confessed by the garnishee, and for the attaching creditor as to the remainder. The latter party has appealed from both judgments. It was by way of execution on a judgment by confession that the attachment was issued.

The levy was upon the moneys, rights and credits of the judgment debtor, Lewis A. Drechsler, in the hands of the Fairfield Farms Dairy, a corporation. The garnishee by its plea admitted that it held funds, amounting to $330.31 when the writ of attachment was served, and to a total of $529.85 at the time of the trial,. ²⁸² representing stuns due for milk skipped to the .dairy by Drechsler from the farm which he was operating. A claim to the funds was filed by the Commonwealth Bank of Baltimore, which alleged title in the bank by virtue of assignments executed by Drechsler and accepted by the dairy company prior to the issuance of the attachment. In the plea of the garnishee reference was made to the assignments on which the bank’s claim was based, and also to a prior assignment by Drechsler to another creditor affecting a part of the admitted fund.

It was for the portion of the fund covered by the earlier assignment, and thus excluded from the one supporting the claim of property on trial, that the judgment in favor of the attaching creditor was rendered. The shipments of milk by Drechsler to the Eairfield Earms Dairy began in August, 1927, and appear to have been discontinued in the following December because of the revocation of the shipper’s permit by the health department. The judgment of the attaching creditor, now- the appellant, was obtained long prior to the period of the milk shipments which produced the fund involved in this litigation. It is evident from the record, on the other hand, that the claims of the Commonwealth Bank against Drechsler were contracted upon the faith of the security which his assignments of the proceeds of his milk shipments were intended to afford.

The proof is that he bought a number of cows for his dairy herd from Joseph D. Stark in September, 1927, and borrowed from the bank on his promissory notes, with the vendor’s endorsements, the sums, aggregating $3,646.40, required for the payment of the purchase price of the cattle. The assignments bear the same dates as the notes which they were respectively given to1 secure, and after referring to the indebtedness represented by the notes, authorize and direct their payment in designated monthly instalments, beginning on November 15th, 1927, under the first assignment, and on December 15th under the second. In its separate written acceptances of the two assignments the dairy company stated ²⁸³ that the first payments would begin, on the dates therein proposed. The claim of property filed by the bank was entered, pending trial, to the use of Mr. Stark, in view of his payment of the notes, on which, with his endorsements, the amount, of the purchase price of the cows bought from him by JDrechsler had been borrowed.

The attaching creditor contests the claim of property on the ground that the assignments to- the bank were invalid efforts to transfer future earnings of the assignor. A