Whether North Carolina had to honor Maryland’s garnishment judgment when Harris, the garnishee, was only temporarily in Maryland.
Holding
Yes. Maryland had jurisdiction to garnish the debt, so its judgment was entitled to full faith and credit in North Carolina.
Reasoning
A state may garnish an ordinary debt when its law permits attachment, the garnishee is personally served within the state, and the creditor could have sued the garnishee there to collect that debt.
Maryland law permitted attachment of credits, and Harris was personally served while in Maryland. Balk could have sued Harris there even though Harris’s visit was temporary. The Court therefore rejected the argument that the debt remained beyond Maryland’s reach because it had a fixed location in North Carolina.
The Maryland judgment reached Harris’s obligation to pay Balk, not a physical thing that had to be present in Maryland. Because the Maryland court had jurisdiction, North Carolina could not disregard its judgment and require Harris to pay the same debt again.
The Court cautioned that a garnishee who fails to notify his creditor of an attachment may lose the ability to use the resulting judgment as a defense. Here, Balk learned of the judgment within days and had an opportunity under Maryland law to contest Epstein’s claim, but did not do so.