<p>1. An attorney who has money belonging to a defendant in execution, is subject to be garnisheed, although the money in his hands has been collected by suit.</p> <p>3. When the answer of a garnishee states facts, from which an indebtedness to the defendentin the execution must be inferred, and that for a specific sum, a judgment may be rendered against him, although his answer contains no distinct admission of indebtedness.</p>
Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know
Decided 1842-01-15
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently January 1932
3 state decisions
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.
¶11. An attorney is not exempt from garnishee process, in consequence of the connexion which exists between him and the courts of law. He is not an officer of the law, although the courts frequently exercise a summary control over him, but this is only for the advancement of justice, by compelling the performance of well known duties to his clients, who are suitors in the courts. For every other purpose, he is the mere agent for his client and when he also becomes his debtor, he may be garnisheed, as any other person.
¶22. It is supposed, in the argument which the garnishee has submitted, that the admission of indebtedness, contained in this answer, is not sufficiently distinct to authorise any judgment. It is certainly settled by repeated decisions of this Court, that the answer must contain an admission of indebtedness. Smith v. Chapman, 6 Porter, 365, and cases there cited. Here, there is such an admission, not. it is true, in so many words, that he owes the defendant in execution so much, but no other conclusion can arise, from the facts which are stated, and if the *314same facts were proved by the defendant in execution in a direct suit against the attorney, a judgment for the specified sum, would be the necessary consequence. It is precisely the same principle which w'as decided by us in the case of Baker v. Moody, 1 Ala. Rep. N. S. 315.
¶3We have no hesitation in reversing the judgment, and should render it here against the garnishee, for the proper sum if the judgment against the defendant, in execution, was shewn.
¶4As the record does not set out this judgment, the cause must be remanded for further proceedings.
¶5We remark that the writ of error is irregular in joining the defendant in execution, with the garnishee, but as no action is requested, we presume, conformably to our recent course of practice, that the defect is waived.
