Mclean Et Al. v. G. T. Duke Co., Inc., 95 Ga. App. 135, 97 S.E.2d 537 (1957)

Georgia Court Of Appeals

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T. B. Higdon, contra.C. Baxter Jones, Jr., William R. Patterson, for plaintiffs in error.

1. The Civil Court of Fulton County has jurisdiction over garnishment cases where the judgment on which the garnishment is based is from a superior court of this State other than the Superior Court of Fulton County.

2. A garnishee may attack the judgment against his creditor and object to its use as evidence before a judgment is entered against him, but after the judgment has been rendered it is conclusively presumed to be a valid judgment.

3. The fact that the debtor applied to be declared, and was declared, a bankrupt within four months after the plaintiff obtained its lien did not automatically void such lien.

4. In the present case where the Bulk Sales Act has not been complied with it is no defense that the purchase price of the property was paid by the purchaser directly to another of the defendant's creditors.

which was later overruled and in which it was contended that the trial court did not possess jurisdiction to try the issues made since the plaintiff was seeking to have a sale set aside. On July 19, 1956, the garnishees filed an amendment to their answer in which it was alleged that the defendant had on March 29, 1956, filed a petition in the United States District Court, Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division, in which he sought to be declared a bankrupt and that the debt owed by him to the plaintiff was listed in such petition and therefore the right to collect the assets of the defendant was vested exclusively in the trustee in bankruptcy. On the trial of the case the trial court hearing the case without the intervention of a jury found for the traverse to the garnishee's answer and entered judgment for the plaintiff and against the garnishees in the amount of the attachment issued from the Superior Court of Cobb County. The garnishees filed a motion for new trial on the usual general grounds which they later amended so as to add two special grounds. The trial court denied the garnishees' motion for new trial as amended and it is to this judgment adverse to them that they except as well as to the antecedent ruling adverse to them.

1. The garnishees' first special ground of their motion for new trial is but a restatement of their motion to dismiss and plea to the jurisdiction and will therefore not be considered separately.

2. The plaintiffs in error, in their brief, attempt to raise the question of the validity of the judgment obtained in the attachment proceedings in Cobb Superior Court. This question was not, according to the record before this court, raised in the court below, nor was any objection made when this judgment was introduced in evidence on the trial of the garnishment proceedings. "The prior judgment against the defendant in the original suit is only necessary evidence which must be adduced in order to warrant a judgment against a garnishee; . . . A garnishee may attack the judgment against his creditor and object to its use as evidence against him, either because it is void or upon any other proper ground, before a judgment is entered against him; but after the judgment has been rendered it is conclusively presumed in its favor that all proof necessary to its rendition was presented." Central of Ga. Ry. v. Wright, 83 Ga. App. 7 (62 S. E. 2d 383), this court held that the fact that the purchase price was paid into a fund for distribution among the creditors of the seller who presented their bills for payment did not relieve the purchaser from the necessity of complying with the provisions of the Bulk Sales Act, supra, and the contention that the garnishee might subsequently be held liable to creditors of the defendant for many times the value of the merchandise purchased by them is without merit inasmuch as the amount paid into court in the first garnishment proceedings would relieve them of liability for that much of the value of the merchandise in the event other garnishment proceedings should be instituted against them by other creditors of the defendant. See Shorter v. Moore, Trimble & Co., 41 Ga. 691, 694. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in denying the garnishee's motion for new trial for any reason assigned.

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