CHAPTER 92.
AN ACT relating to Attachment from before Justices of the Peace.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Delaware in General Assembly met,
SECTION 1. Any person summoned to answer under an execution attachment as a garnishee of another to whom he is indebted in a sum exceeding the amount cognizable before a justice of the peace, or any creditor of such garnishee, may, with the answer or plea admitting or denying such indebtedness, require the justice of the peace to enter upon his docket a plea or pleas that such that much attachment process has been taken against such garnishee by collusion between the plaintiff and the defendant in the judgment upon which such execution attachment is or shall be issued and for a claim not actually due from such defendant, or confessed, contracted, incurred, or made for the occasion, or upon a judgment upon a claim, or for a debt made by dividing or splitting up a claim or debt not primarily cognizable by reason of its amount before a justice of the peace, for the purpose of bringing the same under or within the jurisdiction of a ,justice or justices of the peace, upon which plea or pleas, as well as upon any plea of "nulla bola" entered in the cause, the justice shall enter an issue or issues, which shall be tried and determined as other cases cognizable before the justice; and if either of the issues shall be found for the defendant, the garnishee judgment shall be issued against the attaching creditor for the costs, otherwise as in other cases.
SECTION 2. In any such proceeding either party may have an appeal, as in other cases; and any creditor of the garnishee, in case of judgment against the latter, may cause an appeal to be entered and carried on in the name of the garnishee upon his special application to the justice in that behalf, upon his becoming bound with surety to the satisfaction of the justice for the prosecution of the appeal, &T., as in other cases; in which case the garnishee shall be indemnified for all costs arising upon the appeal. Any creditor who shall make defense in the original proceedings before the justice shall likewise, before being admitted to defend, give security to the satisfaction of the justice for any legal costs which may be incurred in making such defense in vase it shall prove unsuccessful.
SECTION 3. In the prosecution of the appeal in the Superior Court, any defense which might be made before the justice may be made before the court.
SECTION 4. Nothing in this act shall be construed to prevent the giving of a credit upon a claim so as to reduce it to a sum within the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace.
Passed at Dover, March 23, 1871.