After a debtor loses a lawsuit against a creditor, the court may order that property be taken from the debtor to satisfy a debt. Most common enforcement measures are the attachment of wages, which usually empowers the prevailing plaintiff with the right to have the employer send up to 25% of the defendant’s wages to the plaintiff as payment of the debt.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
In the process of attachment. A warning to a person in whose hands the effects of another are attached not to pay the money or deliver the property of the defendant in his hands to him, but to appear and answer the plaintiffs suit. Drake. Attachm. s 451; National Bank of Wilmington v. Furtick, 2 Marv. (Del.) 35, 42 Ati. 479, 44 L. R. A. 115, 69 Am. St. Rep. 99; Georgia A A. Ry. Co. v. Stollenwerck, 122 Ala. 539, 25 South. 258; Jeary v. American Exch. Bank, 2 Neb. (ITnof.) 657, 89 N. W. 772.
A “garnishment.” as the word is employed in this Code, is process to reach and subject money or effects of a defendant in attachment, or in a judgment or decree, or in a pending suit commenced in the ordinary form, in the possession or under the control of a third person, or debts owing such defendant, or liabilities to him on contracts for the delivery of personal property, or on contracts for the payment of money which may be discharged by the delivery of personal property, or on a contract payable In personal property; and such third person is called the “garnishee.” Code Ala. 1886, s 2994.
Garnishment is a proceeding to apply the debt due by a third person to a judgment defendant, to the extinguishment of that judgment, or to appropriate effects belonging to a defendant, in the hands of a third person, to its payment. Strickland v. Maddox, 4 Ga. 393.
Also a warning to any one for his appearance, in a cause in which he is not a party, for the information of the court and explaining a cause. Cowell. Equitable garnishment. This term is sometimes applied to the statutory proceedings authorized in some states, upon the return of an execution unsatisfied, whereby an action something like a bill of discovery may be maintained against the judgment debtor and any third person, to compel the disclosure of any money or property or chose in action belonging to the debtor or held in trust for him by such third person, and to procure satisfaction of the judgment out of such property.