McCoombe v. Dunch, 2 Dall. 73 (C. P. Phila. Cty. 1790)

Foreign attachment in case to September Term, 1785. The plaintiff in this cause having died since judgment was entered, Wilcocks obtained a rule that John Ashley and Thomas Stewardson, his administrators, shew cause why the judgment should not be set aside, and the attachment dissolved. Serjeant accordingly appeared for the administrators, and the following case was stated for the opinion of the Court:

"The attachment was laid in the hands of Caleb and Amos Foulke, William Moore, Esq. Curtis Clay, Owen Jones, Samuel Pleasants, Joseph Swift and Willing & Taylor, as garnishees. At the time of the attachment being served, or at any time since, the garnishees did not owe any sum of money to the Executors of Hudson in right of their testator: But the said William Moore, Esq. was indebted, and also the said Caleb and Amos Foulke, as co-partners were indebted, and the said Curtis Clay, Owen Jones, Samuel Pleasants, Joseph Swift and Willing & Taylor, at the time of the said attachment being laid in their hands respectively, were indebted, in large sums of money to Sandiforth Streatfield, as surviving partner of Thomas Fludyer, Samuel Marsh and Giles Hudson.

"The debt demanded by the plaintiff, in this attachment, was originally due to him, from Giles Hudson, deceased, in his life time, in his private and separate right, and a judgment was recovered in the Court of King's Bench, at Westminster, in England, for the same, by the plaintiff against the present defendants, as executors of the said Giles Hudson, upon which judgment the said plaintiff has declared in an action of trespass on the case, in the said attachment."

The motion to dissolve the attachment was made on behalf of Sandiforth Straitfield, the surviving partner of Hudson, and supported upon two grounds:—1st. That a foreign attachment will not lie against executors; and, 2dly. That the partnership credits of Straitfield & Hudson, cannot be attached to answer the separate debt of Hudson.

On the 30th of October, The President delivered the opinion of the Court in favor of the surviving partner upon both points; and accordingly the rule was made absolute.