McLarty v. Tibbs

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Tibbs, the defendant, is a laborer, over the age of 21 years, unmarried, and not the head of a family. Are his wages as such laborer, to the amount of $100, exempt from garnishment or other legal process? Unless we are to disregard the structure of the statute (paragraph 8, § 1224, Code 1880), and all rules of legal and grammatical interpretation, the exemption referred to is conferred upon heads of families only. The first and third paragraphs of the section create the exemptions peculiar to mechanics and laborers. Paragraph 8 creates an additional exemption, in pursuance of the general policy of our laws for the protection of families, in favor of all heads of families, regardless of the calling of such heads. The exemption sought by the appellee is found, not only in the paragraph conferring exemptions upon the heads of families, but in the very sentence so conferring such exemptions. By every rule of grammatical construction, the exemption is limited to the heads of families; and by that simple rule of legal interpretation, the general words, ‘every laborer or mechanic,’ following the particular words, ‘each head of a family,’ are to be referred to and controlled by such first used particular words; and the true reading will therefore be, ‘The wages of every laborer or mechanic who is the head of a family, to the amount of one hundred dollars, shall be exempt,’ etc. But this view is so palpably plain as to require no argument.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including In re Crook