Bliss v. Smith

Citations

• 78 Ill. 359

Syllabus

<p>• 1. Wages exempt from garnishment — construction of statute. Under the statute exempting the wages of a defendant, being the head of a family and residing with the same, to the amount of §25, the plaintiff can only recover whatever may be due from the garnishee in excess of §25 at the time of service of the garnishee.</p> <p>2. The garnishee process will not reach any wages that the debtor may earn after the service, and before the filing of interrogatories and answer.</p> <p>3. Where the answer of a garnishee stated that the debtor whose wages were sought to be reached had been in his employ from the time of service of process, and had collected bills for such garnishee, and that they had had frequent settlements between the time of service of garnishee process and filing his answer, that he had no means of telling how much he had paid the defendant on account of wages during that time, but that at no time had he owed the defendant to exceed §12, and that defendant was, during all the time, the head of a family, and resided with the same, and the answer was not contested, it was held, that the plaintiff could not recover.</p> <p>4. An employer has a clear right, notwithstanding he has been served with a garnishee process, to pay to his employee his wages, regularly, for the support of his family, so long as the amount due does not exceed §25 at any one time.</p>