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3 Pa. 368

Bulkley v. Eckert

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided July 24, 1846

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1846-07-24

<p>Money held by a person in his official capacity as treasurer of the board of school di* rectors, in common with other money, to be applied towards the payment of teachers, according to the rules and regulations of the acts of Assembly for the maintenance of public schools, and not as a private debt due from him to the defendant, cannot be attached under the act of 1836.</p>

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Great public inconvenience would ensue, if money could be thus arrested in the hands of officers, and they be made liable to all the delay, embarrassment, and trouble that would ensue, from being stopped in the routine of their business, compelled to appear in court, employ counsel, and answer interrogatories, as well as take care that the proceedings are regularly carried on, and bail to return duly given.” *”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including Tioga Pipe Supply Co. v. Savlov, 30 Pa. D. & C. 608 - Charles B. Scott Co. v. Guzzi

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1846-07-24

How this case has been cited

Cited by 21 later decisions — most recently January 1990

19 state decisions

601846185018601870188018901900191019201930194019501960197019801990decided

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 →

Sergeant, J.

¶1The person in whose hands this claim was attached, held the moneys in his official capacity as treasurer of the board of school directors, in common with other money, to be applied towards the payment of teachers, according to the rules and regulations of the acts of Assembly for the maintenance of public schools, and not as a private debt due from him to the defendants. His situation does not appear to us to be distinguished from that of a sheriff or prothonotary,. who has money in his hands as a public officer; and it has been determined that these are not liable to the process of attachment. Great public inconvenience would ensue, if money could be thus arrested in the hands of officers, and they be made liable to all the delay, embarrassment, and trouble that would ensue, from being stopped in the routine of their business, compelled to appear in court, employ counsel, and answer interrogatories, as well as take care that the proceedings are regularly carried on, and bail to return duly given. If a precedent of this kind were set, there seems no reason why the state or county treasurers, or other fiscal officers of the Commonwealth, or of municipal bodies, may not be subjected to the levying of attachments, which has never been attempted nor supposed to come within the attachment law. We do not, therefore, think this is such a debt as is contemplated by that law.

¶2The judgment is affirmed.

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