G.R. No. 1723. January 30, 1904

That the Court of First Instance had jurisdiction of the parties and
the subject-matter of the suit between the Strongs and the petitioner
is not denied. That this action belongs to the class of actions in
which the Court of First Instance has jurisdiction to appoint a
receiver can not be denied. Nor can it be denied that in an action in
which
the court has the power to appoint a receiver it may make an order
requiring parties to the action to deliver to the receiver the property
in litigation. If a Court of First Instance has power to issue an order
it has jurisdiction to punish a person for a refusal to comply with
such order.

Having the power and jurisdiction in this class of cases to issue an
order requiring a defendant to deliver the property to the receiver and
to proceed against the defendant for a failure to comply with such
order, any mistakes which the court may have made in exercising that
power in this particular case must be corrected on an appeal. The
allegations in the petition for the writ of habeas corpus to
the effect that the receiver was appointed Without notice to the
defendant and that no bond or no sufficient bond was required; that in
the proceedings for contempt no complaint had been filed when the first
order was made, and that the court wrongfully decided upon the evidence
that the defendant had in his possession the stock in question, all
fall within this rule. If these were errors which the court below
committed during the progress of the case, nevertheless they did not
make its order committing the defendant an absolute nullity. (Code of
Civil Procedure, sec. 528.)

It is claimed by the petitioner that the attachment of 800 other
shares of the same stock belonging to the defendant had the effect to
render absolutely void the order in question. The attachment seems to
have been granted under sections 412, third, and 424. We do not see how
an attachment under that section on the ground that the defendant has
concealed the property in litigation can absolutely deprive the court
of the power through its receiver to take possession of the property
itself, if it should be afterwards found, or to continue proceedings
then pending looking to a discovery of its whereabouts. There is
nothing in the Code of Civil Procedure which declares that the
attachment shall have such effect. The contention of the petitioner
would lead to the result that if the day after the attachment had been
levied the defendant had exhibited
in court the shares in litigation the court would have had no power to
order their delivery to the receiver, and apparently to the further
result that no such order could have been inserted in the final
judgment, the attachment which the law allows in this class of cases
thus having the effect of changing the nature of the case itself from
one for the recovery of specific personal property to one for the
recovery of its value.

The fact that the plaintiff’s claim might in such case be doubly
secured could not destroy the jurisdiction in regard to the receiver
which the court had acquired prior to the attachment.

The remedy of the petitioner for the correction of the errors he
alleges have been committed in this case is by appeal and not by habeas corpus.

The prisoner must be remanded to the custody of the sheriff.

Arellano, C. J., Torres, Cooper, Mapa, McDonough, and Johnson, JJ., concur.