Austin v. Wallace

Citations

• 117 Wash. 61
• 200 P. 566
• 1921 Wash. LEXIS 995

Syllabus

<p>Assignments (23) — Set-off and Counterclaim (16) — Assigned Claims — Liabilities of Assignor to Third Persons. Under Rem. Code, § 191, providing that any debtor may plead a set-off against an assignee, if held by him against the original owner, a corporation to whom a debtor had loaned money less than the amount of his debt may credit the amount of the loan and offset the debt against a garnishment notwithstanding the bank’s claim had been assigned to a third person for collection.</p> <p>Garnishment (32-1) —Extent of Liability of Garnishee. A garnishor can acquire by the garnishment no greater rights in property than the debtor had at the time of garnishment.</p> <p>Assignments (24) —Equities and Defenses Between Parties — Estoppel. The rule that, after assignment of a non-negotiable chose in action, the assignor has no right to collect the chose, and if he does so, the money will be held as a trust fund belonging to the assignee, has no application except as between assignor and assignee.</p> <p>Garnishment (15-1) — Property Assigned for Collection. A fund collected by an assignor after assignment thereof to a third person for the purposes of collection, cannot be garnished as the property of the assignor, where the assignor was entitled to offset the amount and was not in fact indebted to the judgment debtor.</p> <p>Abatement and Revival (2) —Garnishment (38) —Another Action Pending — Nature of Action. The defense of another action pending, under Rem. & Bal. Code, §§ 259, 261, providing that an item of account already the basis of a pending suit cannot be interposed as a set-off or counterclaim in another action is not available in the case of a garnishee defendant brought into court to show its indebtedness to defendant; hence such garnishee, though it has an action pending against the principal defendant on the claim for which it is garnished, may set up the payment of such claim as a defense.</p>