Shryock v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad

Alvey, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Upon the agreed statement of facts the judgment of the Court below was properly rendered for the appellee, and that judgment, therefore, must he affirmed by this Court. The case, in all of its essential facts, is precisely similar to the case of House vs. Balto. & Ohio R. Co., 48 Md., 130 ,, and the principle of construction applied in that case equally applies here. In this case the judgment upon which the attachment issued was recovered in April, 1872, for $482.78, and the attachment was issued on the 5th day of March, 1880, and the same day laid in the hands of the appellee.

At that time nothing was due Trego, the defendant in the judgment, hut he was in the employ of the appellee at a salary of $3000 a year, payable monthly; and between the time of laying the attachment and the time of trial, there had accrued due and ⁵²¹ been actually paid over to Trego by the appellee the sum of $2250, in monthly instalments of $250. It is not claimed or pretended that the appellee was indebted to the defendant in the judgment on any other account than for services while in its employment. By the Code, Art. 10, sec. 36, no attachment could affect any salary or wages of the debtor not actually due at the date of the attachment; and the sum of $10 of such salary or wages as might be due at the date of the attachment was exempted from the process. The Act of 1814, ch. 45, repealed this section of the Code, and re-enacted the same as amended; and by this latter Act the right of attachment, as against wages or hire, is altogether taken away, unless the debt or judgment upon which the attachment is issued shall, exclusive of costs, exceed the sum of $100 ; and the exemption is extended to $100, in those cases in which the attachment may issue and be levied under the Act.

But the Act, by its proviso, expressly declares