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89 Wis. 161

Griggs v. Docter

Wisconsin Supreme Court

Decided January 8, 1895

Wisconsin Supreme Court · decided 1895-01-08

II. JohNson, Circuit Judge. Action in equity to enjoin tbe prosecution of garnishment, proceedings in tbe state of Iowa. Tbe plaintiff is a married-, man, with a family dependent upon bim, residing in this-state, and is in tbe employ of tbe Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company. Tbe defendants, who are also residents of Wisconsin, brought action against bim in Iowa, and garnished bis exempt earnings in tbe bands of tbe railway company.

Relies on Wille v. Bartz

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1895-01-08

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently April 1934

5 state decisions

2018951900191019201930decided

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.

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Winslow, J.

¶1There being no bill of exceptions, the only question presented is whether the pleadings and findings sustain the judgment. Wille v. Bartz, 88 Wis. 424. This question must be answered in the affirmative. The pleadings and findings show, without dispute or exception, that the defendants, in order to evade the exemption laws of the state, commenced garnishment proceedings in a foreign state in order to subject the exempt earnings of a resident of this state to their claims as creditors, and, in defiance of the interlocutory order of the court, actually appropriated $60 of the plaintiff’s exempt wages to the payment of their debt. Why the court should not have administered the relief which it did administer, we are at a loss to perceive. The jurisdiction of equity in actions of this nature is well established. High, Inj. (2d ed.), § 106.

As to injunction against suit in foreign jurisdiction, see note to Thorndike v. Thorndike, 21 L. R. A. 71.— Rep.

¶2It is said that the judgment is erroneous because it enjoins tbe defendants so long as the plaintiff remains a resident of this state, whereas it should be limited to such time as the plaintiff, being a resident of this state, provides for the entire support of a family within the state. If there is anything in this point, the objection is obviated by the subsequent words of 'the judgment, which limit the operation of the injunction to those earnings which are exempt.

¶3That part of the judgment which adjudges the recovery of the $60 which the defendants collected by their garnishment in the Iowa court in disobedience to the preliminary in junctional order, was eminently proper. A court of equity would hardly deserve that name if it turned the plaintiff out of court with a bare injunction, and commanded him to seek his remedy by another action for the' moneys thus wrongfully converted in contempt of an order of the court made in this very action.

¶4By the Court.— Judgment affirmed.

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