Williams v. General Credit, Inc.

Sloan, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal is from an order overruling a motion to quash an attachment. ⁵⁶ On October 23, 1941, the plaintiff, General Credit, Inc., a corporation, caused to be issued out of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, an attachment against the defendant, George H. Williams, trading as Williams Motor Company, who was a dealer in automobiles and trucks at Kensington in Montgomery County. The attachment was on original process for fraud under Section 36, Article 9, Code of 1939, on all grounds mentioned in that section, but the only ones with which we are here concerned in this case are “that the defendant has removed or is about to remove his property * * * out of the State with intent to defraud his creditors,” and he “has assigned, disposed of [and] concealed, or is about to assign, dispose of [and] conceal his property * * * with intent to defraud his creditors.” A motion to quash the attachment was filed by the defendant, on whose suggestion the case was removed to Prince George’s County, where it was heard by two of the judges of that circuit, who overruled the motion, from which action, the defendant appealed. The defendant was engaged in the retail automobile business by his stock in trade from a distributor.

Not having the means to pay for the cars, 90 per cent, was secured by conditional sales contracts, which were sold to General Credit, Inc. At the time of the attachment, the defendant owed $15,738.20, and the cars had all been disposed of without accounting to the plaintiff. It got anxious about its money and endeavored through its attorney to get a settlement on October 18, 1941, at defendant’s place of business, but without success. Two days later, two automobiles which the attorney had seen were missing, and their disappearance was not satisfactorily explained. Five cars had been shipped to North Carolina and some sent to Philadelphia.

Williams testified that they were used cars usually sent out of the State because there was no market here for used cars; and that Credit, Inc., knew of it and never complained; and that, therefore, it was done with the knowledge and acquiescence of the plaintiff; and in the ordinary course ⁵⁷ of business. For two years or more before the attachment, the defendant sold about $250,000 worth of cars a year, financed through the plaintiff. With 0such a volume of business, the turn-over was sufficient for him to keep up his obligations to the plaintiff. Then business fell off; there was little supply of new cars, and the money was not forthcoming to meet his obligations as they matured, and he found himself without funds; the result was that when the business vanished, the income dwindled and he could not meet his debts to the defendant as they matured.

Things that had been done in the ordinary course of business were not being done, and the plaintiff naturally worried about its account with the defendant and wanted its money. The defendant