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11 Haw. 202

de Souza v. Smith

Hawaii Supreme Court

Decided October 20, 1897

Hawaii Supreme Court · decided 1897-10-20

<p>Wages payable by a tramway company to a driver only on condition that the driver return a larger amount deposited with him for use in making change with passengers, are not subject to garnishment.</p>

Relies on Fellows v. Smith

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1897-10-20

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently May 1990

3 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1OPINION OP THE COURT BY

FREAR, J.

¶2This case comes here on plaintiff’s exceptions to the judgment of the Circuit Court discharging the garnishee, that court having tried the case jury waived on the garnishee’s appeal from the District Court.

¶3The garnishee was manager of the Hawaiian Tramways Company. The defendant was driver on one of the cars of the company. The driver had in his possession $25 of the company’s money for use in making change with passengers. The company owed the driver $12 wages. The only question now raised is whether the company could be held as garnishee in respect of the $12 owed the driver. The question whether the company, instead of its manager, should have been made garnishee, is waived.

¶4The plaintiff argues that, as the defendant held the $25 as bailee and claimed the $12 in his own right, the garnishee could *203have no right of set-off against the defendant and therefore conld not set np that defense against the plaintiff. The garnishee, however, relies, not on set-off, but on a claim that by the terms of the contract between the garnishee and the defendant, the wages were payable only upon the return of the $25, in other words, that whether the garnishee owed the defendant anything depended upon the contingency that the defendant should return the money entrusted to him. It is well established that a debt subject to a contingency, and not due or to become due by the mere lapse of time is not subject to garnishment. See Fellows v. Smith, 131 Mass. 363. The question of difficulty in this case is whether the evidence is sufficient to establish the contract relied on. The evidence is not satisfactory, but, bearing in mind that the finding of the trial Judge must be treated as a verdict of a jury, we are of the opinion that there was sufficient evidence to sustain it. Specific findings of law and fact were not made or requested.

Ay G. Correa for plaintiff.P. Neumann for garnishee.

¶5The exception is overruled.

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