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20 Del. 345

Netter v. Stoeckle

Superior Court of Delaware

Decided May 29, 1903

Superior Court of Delaware · decided 1903-05-29

On May 26th, counsel for plaintiff stated that the above case had been continued from the February Term to the May Term ot court, and in the meantime there had been a change in counsel; that the same affidavit and notice which had been originally prepared to be served upon defendant’s counsel at the February Term for the production of certain papers, had been served upon Mr. Hayes at this term, and the application was upon said affidavit for the production of the same papers.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“garnishee stands in * * the same position that he would have been in had the suit been brought by his own creditor.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including McNeilly v. Furman

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1903-05-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently June 1974

1 district · 4 state decisions

2019031910192019301940195019601970decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Pennewill, J.,

¶1charging the jury:

¶2Gentlemen of the jury:—Originally Seligman Netter, trading as Netter Brothers, obtained a judgment against Sarah Nest'pr, upon which judgment an attachment was issued, and Harry J. Stoeckle, manager, was summoned as a garnishee to answer what money, goods, chattels, rights, credits or effects of Sarah Nestor he had in hand. That attachment was served on March 21,1901,and the answer was continued from time to time until November 19, 1901, when a plea of nulla bona was entered!

¶3The question you are to determine is whether the garnishee, Harry J. Stoeckle, manager, was legally indebted to Sarah Nestor in the manner above indicated, at the time the attachment was served or any time between that and November 19, 1901.

¶4In order that the plaintiff may recover, he must satisfy you, by a preponderance of the testimony, that Harry J. Stoeckle> manager, on March 21,1901, or some time between that and November 19, 1901, was legally liable to Sarah Nestor for money, goods, chattels, rights, credits or effects of Sarah Nestor.

¶5It has been laid down by this Court that the attaching creditor stands in no better position than the defendant as to the collection of a debt due to the latter from the garnishee.

¶6It is the general rule that the right of the attaching creditor to recover against the garnishee depends upon the subsisting rights between the garnishee and the debtor in the attachment; and the test of the garnishee’s liability is that he has funds, property or *349credits in his hands belonging to the debtor, for which the latter would have a right to sue.

¶7Odenhal et al. vs. Devlin, 48 Md., 444.

¶8The garnishee stands in the same position that he would have been in had the suit been brought by his own creditor. The fact that a garnishment process has been served upon him places him in no worse position and under no greater liability than he would have been had an action at law been brought against him by the principal defendant to whom he was indebted, or whose property he had in his possession.

¶9Under the law, as the Court have declared it to you, and the evidence you have heard from the stand, you are to find your verdict.

¶10Verdict for defendant.

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