1. Due process of law does not require that a judgment debtor,
who had his day in court before the judgment was rendered, shall be
given additional notice and opportunity to be heard before issuance
of a garnishment to satisfy the judgment. P.
266 U. S.
288.
2. A statute (N.Y.Code Civ.Proc., § 1391) providing for an
execution which, when served on the employer of a judgment debtor,
becomes a lien and continuing levy on a percentage of future wages
of the latter, requiring the former to pay them to the officer as
they become due or be liable to an action therefor by the judgment
creditor in which the recovery shall be applied upon the execution,
does not deprive the garnishee or the judgment debtor of property
without due process of law by interference with their liberty of
contract. P.
266 U. S.
290.
3. Nor does such procedure impair any substantial constitutional
right of the garnishee because it entails additional expense of
bookkeeping.
Id.
4. The contention that such a statute is void because contrary
to public policy does not present a federal question.
Id.
200 App.Div. 847, 234 N.Y. 627, affirmed.
Page 266 U. S. 286
Error to a judgment of the Supreme Court of New York, entered on
remittitur from the court of appeals, affirming a judgment against
a garnishee.
MR. JUSTICE SANFORD delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case involves the constitutional validity of § 1391 of the
New York Code of Civil Procedure relating to the garnishment of
wages and other choses in action of a judgment debtor.
This section of the Code, as amended by the Laws of 1919, c.
278,{1} provides that, where a judgment has been recovered and an
execution thereon returned unsatisfied, the judgment creditor may
apply to the court without notice to the judgment debtor, and, on
satisfactory proof that any wages, debts, earnings, salary, income
from trust funds or profits are or will thereafter become due and
owing to the judgment debtor to the amount of twelve dollars or
more per week, a judge or justice shall order that an execution
issue against such wages, etc., of the judgment debtor. On
presentation of such execution by the collecting officer to the
person from whom such wages, etc., are or may become due and owing,
the execution shall become a lien and continuing levy upon such
wages, etc., to the amount specified in the execution, not
exceeding ten percentum thereof, until the execution is fully
satisfied. Any person to whom the execution is presented, who is or
becomes indebted to the judgment debtor, shall, while the execution
remains a lien upon the indebtedness, pay over to the officer the
amount of the indebtedness prescribed
Page 266 U. S. 287
by the execution until it is wholly satisfied, and such payment
shall be a bar to any action therefor by the judgment debtor. If
such person fails or refuses to pay over to the officer the
percentage of such indebtedness, he shall be liable to an action
therefor by the judgment creditor, and the amount recovered shall
be applied towards the payment of the execution. Either party may
apply at any time for such modification of the execution as shall
be deemed just.
The Encyclopedia Press, Inc., having duly recovered a judgment
in the Supreme Court of New York against an employee of the
Endicott Corporation receiving weekly wages of more than twelve
dollars, was awarded,
ex parte, under this section of the
Code, an execution against his wages directing the corporation to
pay over each week ten percentum thereof until the execution was
satisfied. The corporation failed and refused so to do, and
continued to pay the employee his entire weekly wages as they
became due.
The Encyclopedia Press thereupon brought suit in the Supreme
Court against the corporation, upon the execution, for the
accumulated percentages of the weekly wages that it had not paid
over. Judgment was recovered which, upon successive appeals, was
affirmed without opinions by the Appellate Division and the Court
of Appeals. 200 App.Div. 847, 234 N.Y. 627.{2} The record was
remitted to the Supreme Court, to which this writ of error was
directed.
The corporation contends that § 1391 of the Code is in conflict
with the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in that it
authorizes the issuance of a garnishment execution without notice
to the judgment debtor or affording him a hearing, and further in
that it interferes
Page 266 U. S. 288
with the liberty of contract between the judgment debtor and the
garnishee.
1. We assume for present purposes that a garnishee sued upon the
execution has, by reason of the nature of the cause of action and
the liability which this section imposes upon him, the right to
challenge its constitutionality on the ground that it is wanting in
due process as against the judgment debtor.
See High v. Bank of
Commerce, 95 Cal. 386.
The words "due process of law," when applied to judicial
proceedings,
"mean a course of legal proceedings according to those rules and
principles which have been established in our systems of
jurisprudence for the protection and enforcement of private
rights."
Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714,
95 U. S. 733;
Scott v. McNeal, 154 U. S. 34,
154 U. S. 46.
They require a proceeding which, observing the general rules thus
established, follows forms of law appropriate to the case and just
to the parties to be affected, and which, whenever it is necessary
for the protection of the parties, gives them an opportunity to be
heard respecting the justice of the judgment sought.
Hagar v.
Reclamation District, 111 U. S. 701,
111 U. S. 708.
However, the established rules of our system of jurisprudence do
not require that a defendant who has been granted an opportunity to
be heard and has had his day in court should, after a judgment has
been rendered against him, have a further notice and hearing before
supplemental proceedings are taken to reach his property in
satisfaction of the judgment. Thus, in the absence of a statutory
requirement, it is not essential that he be given notice before the
issuance of an execution against his tangible property; after the
rendition of the judgment, he must take "notice of what will
follow," no further notice being "necessary to advance justice."
Ayres v. Campbell, 9 Iowa 213, 216;
Reid v. Railway
Co., 32 Pa. 257, 258;
Foster v. Young, 172 Cal. 317,
322;
McAnaw v. Matthis, 129 Mo. 142, 152.
Page 266 U. S. 289
There is no more reason why the judgment debtor should be
entitled to notice before the issue of an execution provided by
statute as supplemental process to impound, in satisfaction of the
judgment, choses in action due to him which cannot be reached by an
ordinary execution. No established rule of our system of
jurisprudence requires that such notice be given. On the contrary,
it has been frequently held in the state courts that, in the
absence of a statutory requirement, it is not essential that the
judgment debtor be given notice and an opportunity to be heard
before the issuance of such garnishment.
High v. Bank of
Commerce, supra, p. 387;
Coffee v. Haynes, 124 Cal.
561, 565;
Ketcham v. Kent, 115 Mich. 60, 63;
Hexter v.
Clifford, 5 Colo. 168, 173;
Kesler v. St. John, 22
Iowa 565, 566;
Phillips v. Germon, 43 Iowa 101, 102;
Smith v. Dickson, 58 Iowa 444, 445;
Pistchal v.
Durant, 168 App.Div. 100, 102.
And see Daigle v.
Baird, 22 La.Ann. 138, 139;
Chanute v. Martin, 25
Ill. 63, 65;
Cross v. Brown, 19 R.I. 220;
Winner v.
Hoyt, 68 Wis. 278, 286. In
High v. Bank of Commerce,
supra, in which the constitutionality of a garnishment statute
was challenged because it did not require notice to the judgment
debtor before issuance of the writ, the court said:
"So far as the judgment debtor is concerned, he cannot complain;
he is a party to the judgment, and is fully aware of the legal
effect of it,
viz., that what his debtors owe him can be
applied, by proper proceedings in the action which is still
pending, to the satisfaction of his judgment debts, and due process
of law has been had to make him aware of that fact. If, then,
anything is due from his debtor, he is not injured if it is so
applied. If nothing is due him from such debtor, then the matter is
of no concern to him. . . . We therefore see no force in the
suggestion that the statute is unconstitutional in that the
judgment debtor has under it no notice of the supplementary
proceeding after judgment affecting his rights of property. "
Page 266 U. S. 290
And in
Ketcham v. Kent, supra, the court aptly said
that, if notice were given the judgment debtor before issuing the
garnishment,
"the very advantage sought by the writ would possibly be of no
avail, as a disposition could be made of the fund or property
before service could be had."
We conclude that the provision of § 1391 of the Code authorizing
the issue of a garnishment execution on the
ex parte
application of the judgment creditor is not in conflict with the
due process clause.
2. Nor does this section deprive the judgment debtor and
garnishee of property without due process of law by interference
with their liberty of contract. The statute in no wise prevents
them from making such contract as they choose, but merely subjects
the proceeds of the contract that become due the judgment debtor to
the payment of the judgment rendered against him. This is not an
interference with the right of contract within the meaning of the
due process clause.
Compare Philbrick v. Philbrick, 39
N.H. 468, 474,
and Laird v. Carton, 196 N.Y. 169, 172. The
suggestion that a substantial constitutional right of the garnishee
is impaired because he may be put to some additional expense of
bookkeeping in keeping his account with the judgment debtor is
plainly without merit.
3. It is further contended that this section of the Code is void
because contrary to public policy. This, however, does not present
a Federal question.
Affirmed.
After the institution of this suit, this section of the Code was
reenacted as § 684 of the Civil Practice Act. Laws of 1920, c.
925.
See the opinions of the Supreme Court and Appellate
Division in an earlier case involving similar questions.
Smith
v. Endicott-Johnson Corporation, 189 N.Y.Supp. 673, 199
App.Div.194.