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31 A.D. 307

In re Gough

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York · decided 1898-07-01

Appeal by the judgment debtors, Douglass R. Satterlee and Elizabeth II. Satterlee, as composing the firm of D. R. Satterlee & Company, as trustees of an express fund, from an order of the Supreme Court, made at the blew York Special Term and entered in the office of the clerk of the county of Hew York on the 27th day of April, 1898, denying the said judgment debtors’ motion to vacate an order for their examination in proceedings supplementary to execution.

Relies on Lynch v. . Johnson · Pope v. Cole

Decided 1898-07-01

Per Curiam :

¶1Upon the granting of the order to show cause in this case the following opinion was delivered by Mr. Justice Pryor : “ The judgment is against the defendants as trustees, and the object of the proposed examination is to reach a fund deposited with them for satisfaction of the judgment. A supplementary proceeding is a substitute for a creditor’s bill (Pope v. Cole, 64 Barb. 406), and the case authorizes such a bill. (Code, § 1871.) It is objected that a supplementary proceeding is not available against a trustee, but the adjudications cited for the contention do not support it. In In re Jung (16 Wkly. Dig. 563) the irregularity of the judgment was the ground of decision. In Collins v. Beebe (54 Hun, 318) the proceeding was held untenable because the statute authorizes an execution and nothing further against the estate of a decedent. The argument in neither case applies to the present. (Lynch v. Johnson, 48 N. Y. 27, 33.) The legal title to the fund is in the defendants, and they are the judgment debtors. The execution is in proper form. (Code, § 1371.) Here, then, is a fruitless execution against the only property of the judgment debtors available to the plaintiff —■ a fund specifically devoted to the satisfaction of his judgment — and it were manifest injustice to refuse him its benefit. A supplementary proceeding is a remedial process, and a liberal construction should be indulged to uphold it.”

¶2In accordance with the views therein expressed the order appealed from should be affirmed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements.

¶3Present — Van Brunt, P. J., Rumsey-, Patterson and Ingraham, JJ.

¶4Order affirmed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements.

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