Boyd v. Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Co.

Goudsborough, J., delivered the opinion of this court. The record in this case shows that the appellant obtained a judgment in the circuit court for Washington county, at November term 1855, against a certain William Brown, for $1435.51. He subsequently caused an attachment, instead of any other execution, to be issued on this judgment, under which certain proceedings were had, so that at the March term, 1858, of said court, a judgment of condemnation was entered by default against the appellee, as garnishee in the ²¹⁰ attachment, for the whole amount of the judgment against Brown. • A writ of fieri facias was issued on this judgment of condemnation, and levied on sundry articles of personal property claimed by the appellee. At the instance and upon the bill of complaint of the appellee, the circuit court issued an injunction prohibiting and enjoining the appellant and sheriff from making sale of the property taken in execution, until the further order of the court.

At November term 1S59, a motion was made by the respondent to dissolve the injunction. The court, upon the hearing, overruled the motion, and he appealed to this court. After a careful examination of this case, and of the proceedings which were had on the common law side of the circuit court, we think that its equity power by injunction was improperly exercised. The bill of complaint alleges that the appellee is “a corporation chartered by the laws of Maryland. ’ ’ It is thus brought within the operation of the 5th section of the Act of 1832, ch. 306, not only in reference to the mode of bringing the corporation into court as defendant, but, in our opinion, the word “process,” used in that section, is’sufficiently comprehensive to apply to the service of writs of attachment on a corporation as garnishee.

By the return of the sheriff in this case, which, by the Act of 1854, ch. 75, is made “evidence of the same, as is now the case in the service of other writs,” two of the officers and directors of the company were served with notice of the attachment; and their official relation to the company is no where denied in the bill of complaint. In the case of the U. S. Insurance Co. vs. Shriver, et al., 3 Md. Ch. Dec., 381, the chancellor correctly lays down the doctrine, that “if notice is given to a director officially, for the purpose of being communicated to the board, although such notice should not be communicated, the institution is. bound by it.” But it is objected here that the sheriff’s return was