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32 Ga. 356

Smith v. Riley

Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided March 15, 1861

Supreme Court of Georgia · decided 1861-03-15

Attachment, in Campbell Superior Court, decided by Hon. Dennis F. Hammond, at August Term, 1860. Moses M. Smith sued out ¡irocess of attachment, predicated upon an affidavit, “that S. G. Riley, trustee for Lucinda Riley, and her children,” was justly indebted to him in the sum of $860 00, and that said S. G. Riley then resided out of the State of Georgia, so that the ordinary process of law could not be served on him.

Cited by 1 later decisions — most recently April 1901

1 state decisions

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1861-03-15

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¶1By the Court.

Lumkih, J.,

¶2delivering the opinion.

¶3This record reminds me of the famous controversy as to the number of children the wife of John Rogers, the martyr, had. If the nine that followed their mother to the stake was exclusive of the one at the breast, why, then, she had ten, if inclusive, nine.

¶4If this attachment is against Riley, as trustee, under the Act of 1856, giving a common law remedy against trustees, then it will not lie. The statute does not provide for attachments. Indeed, its terms would necessarily exclude this process. If, on the other hand, it is an attachment against S. G. Riley, in his individual character, and although admitted in the argument to be the other way,—and I am strongly inclined to think the pleader so intended it—then the pi’oeeedings should be sustained.

¶5One of the best modes of testing this question would be to inquire on whose property the levy was made? Was it the individual property of S. G. Riley, or the trust estate of Lucinda Riley and her children, in S. G. Riley’s hands ? If the latter, the proceeding is illegal and void. If the former, *358although there is much confusion in the record, I do not see but that the attachment may be sustained.

¶6It was this that produced the difficulty, I apprehend, in the Court below, and which creates the difficulty in this Court. The very idea of suing out an attachment against a Lrus tee, because he resides out of the State, is an absurdity. It cannot be done, and this is all we decide.

¶7Let the judgment be affirmed.

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