TAYABAS COMPANY VS.

SHARRUF

Salvador Farre recovered a joint and several judgment against Salomon and Farham M. Sharruf in the CFI of the city
of Manila for the sum of P1,300, with legal interest. This judgment having remained unsatisfied, and execution was
upon April 3, 1916, issued thereon at the instance of the plaintiff.

Meanwhile on March 27, 1915, Salomon M. Sharruf had himself recovered a judgment, also in the Court of First
Instance of the city of Manila, against the Tayabas Land Company and A.M. Ginainati, for the sum of P6,841.36,
with interest and costs; and as there seems to have been no visible property belonging to Salomon M. Sharruf and
Farham M. Sharruf subject to seizure by the sheriff to satisfy the execution in favor of Salvador Farre, it became
important for Farre to subject the judgment in favor of Salomon M. Sharruf against the Tayabas Land Company and
A.M. Ginainati to the payment of his own claim.

To this end process of garnishment (notification de embargo) was issued at the instance of Salvador Farre in aid of
his execution against the Sharrufs and was on the same or succeeding day duly served upon the Tayabas Land
Company. By this process the Tayabas Land Company was informed that levy had, by virtue of the execution
aforesaid, been made upon all the property of S. M. Sharruf in the possession of said Tayabas Land Company and
upon all debts owing by the latter to said Sharruf, and in particular upon all participation and interest of S. M.
Sharruf in the judgment rendered in his favor in the action prosecuted by him against the Tayabas Land Company
and others.

In pursuance of the levy thus effected upon the judgment in favor of Salomon M. Sharruf against the Tayabas Land
Company, the sheriff of the city of Manila, as in ordinary cases of levy upon chattels of real property, proceeded to
expose to sale(public auction in short..murag ana ) all right, title, and interest of said Sharruf in the judgment
aforesaid. At this sale Salvador Farre, the execution creditor himself, became the purchaser of the judgment in
question for the sum of P200; but the Tayabas Land Company, with a legitimate view to its own protection,
afterwards stepped in, and acting through Mr. Francisco Alvarez, as attorney and intermediary, purchased from
Farre, the judgment of Salomon M. Sharruf against itself, paying to Farre the full amount due him, to wit, the sum
of P1,588.24.

As a consequence, the Tayabas Land Company supposes that the judgment obtained by Salomon M. Sharruf against
it and A.M. Ginainati has been wholly satisfied, while Salomon M. Sharruf and those interested under him claim
that the execution sale of the judgment in question was void and that as a consequence said judgment remains
wholly unsatisfied. Proceeding upon this conception of the case, Messrs. Crossfield and O'Brien, as attorneys for
the plaintiff in that action, procured an execution to be issued upon said judgment for the entire amount of the
recovery, including accrued interest and costs, less the sum of P13.21, which had been secured in a garnishment
proceeding against one of the local banks.
Being thus menaced with the levy of an execution upon its property, the Tayabas Land Company instituted the
present action in the Court of First Instance of the city of Manila, Against Salomon M. Sharruf and others, including
the sheriff of the Province of Tayabas, to obtain an order restraining the threatened levy of execution and
perpetually enjoining all proceedings for the enforcement of the judgment against it.

ISSUE: W/N the proceedings whereby the judgment against the Tayabas Land Company and A.M. Ginainati in favor
of Salomon M. Sharruf which was exposed to sale by the sheriff under the execution issued in the action of
Salvador Farre against the two Sharrufs is valid.

RULING: NO.

Enough has now been said to show clearly that the action of the sheriff in exposing to public sale the judgment
which had been procured by Salomon M. Sharruf in the action against the Tayabas Land Company, et al., was
wholly unauthorized, and said sale must be considered void. The proper step would have been for the court to
require the Tayabas Land Company, after the judgment against it had become final, to pay into court, in the cause
wherein Salvador Farre was plaintiff, a sufficient amount of money to satisfy Farre's claim against Sharruf; and if the
judgment against the Tayabas Land Company had been permitted to go to the stage of execution, the proceeds in
the hands of the sheriff would have been applied, under the direction of the court, to the payment of Farre's claim
before any part would have been payable to Sharruf.

In dealing with the problems which have from time to time arisen in connection with garnishment proceedings,
courts have sometimes been perplexed over the matter of protecting the garnishee from the danger of having to
pay his debt twice; and it goes without saying that the procedure must be so adjusted as not to subject the
garnishee to this risk. Otherwise it is a fatal obstacle to the garnishment. No such difficulty would arise in a case like
this, where the two judgments are both of record in the same court, and where consequently that court has
control over the process in both cases.

Our conclusion that the sale of the judgment in question under process of execution was void is supported by the
decisions of the Supreme Court of California, construing the very section of the California Code of Civil Procedure
from which section 450 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Philippine Islands was taken. Thus, in McBride vs.
Fallon (65 Cal., 301, 303), the Supreme Court of that State said:

After enumerating the kinds of property of a judgment debtor liable to execution, the Code provides that
"shares and interests in any corporation or company" and debts and credits . . . and all other property not
capable of manual delivery, may be attached on execution in like manner as upon writs of attachments.

"Debts and credits and property not capable of manual delivery must be attached in the mode pointed out
by subdivision 5, sec. 542." (Corresponding to section 431 of the Philippine Code of Civil Procedure.) "That
is "by leaving with the person owing the debt or having in possession or under his control such credits and
other personal property" or with his agent, a copy of the writ, and a notice that the debts owing by him to
the defendant, or the credits and other personal property' in his possession or under his control,
belonging to the defendant are attached in pursuance of such writ.

"The fact that a debt is evidenced by a judgment does not, in our opinion, make it anything more or less
than a debt, or more capable of manual delivery than it would be if not so evidenced. No provision is
made for attaching or levying on evidences of debt. It is the debt itself which may be attached by writ of
attachment, or on execution in like manner as upon writs of attachment." This we think to be the meaning
of the Code, and the mode prescribed by it is exclusively . . .

In order to avoid misunderstanding, we wish to say that we make no question as to the propriety of the
proceedings up to the time when the judgment in question was advertised and exposed to sale by the sheriff. The
issuance of the execution and the service of the garnishment were appropriate; and the garnishment was effective
for the purpose of preventing the garnishee, the Tayabas Land Company, from paying the judgment to Salomon M.
Sharruf.

Moreover, the garnishment was effective for the purpose of conferring upon the Tayabas Land Company the right
to pay off the judgment which Farre had obtained against Sharruf. This right is not only recognized in section 481 of
the Code of Civil Procedure but also in subsection 3 of article 1210 of the Civil Code; and by satisfying Farre's claim,
regardless of the manner in which it was accomplished, the Tayabas Land Company absolved itself pro tanto from
its indebtedness to Sharruf. It results that, although the judgment against the Tayabas Land Company has not yet
been satisfied in full, said company is entitled to be credited with the sum of P1,588.24, said by it, through
Francisco Alvarez, to Farre on October 6, 1917, with interest.