Opinion
Decided June, 1879.
A complainant who has instituted and carried on a prosecution for a violation of the law relating to the sale of spirituous liquor, and has become entitled, by a judgment of court, to one half of fines collected through such prosecution, cannot, by a subsequent disclaimer of his interest in such fines, defeat an attachment thereof by trustee process.
FOREIGN ATTACHMENT. Question whether the trustee should be charged. Before the commencement of this suit, the defendant instituted prosecutions against two persons for violation of the liquor law, and caused them to be indicted on his own testimony, intending to claim half of the fines, under Gen. St., c. 99, s. 21, and declaring that he made complaint, and testified before the grand jury for that purpose. When the expected fines were imposed and paid to the trustee, and the moieties to which the defendant was entitled were attached in this suit, he disclaimed all interest in them.
Wadleigh Wallace, for the plaintiff.
Burns, solicitor, for the trustee.
A complainant, instituting and carrying on prosecutions for the illegal sale of spirituous liquor, is "entitled to one half of every fine collected through such prosecution." Gen. St., c. 99 s. 21. When the fines were paid into the county treasury, the plaintiff was entitled to one half of them. His disclaimer, after attachment by trustee process, of any interest in the fines which prior thereto he was seeking to obtain and was entitled to receive, will not enable him to accomplish his design to defraud his creditor. By the provisions of Gen. St., c. 230, s. 28, the trustee is chargeable.
Case discharged.
STANLEY, J., did not sit: the others concurred.