Title 6.5. Attachment · Chapter 10. Liability for Wrongful Attachment · Last amended 1983 · Last verified July 28, 2026
Section 490.010 says when an attachment is wrongful. Section 490.020 says what that costs the plaintiff. Subdivision (a) breaks the liability into two pieces: every item of damage the wrongful attachment proximately caused the defendant, and separately, every cost and expense -- including attorney's fees -- the defendant reasonably spent defeating the attachment.
Proximate cause does real work here. The defendant does not recover for every consequence remotely connected to the levy, only for the damages the wrongful attachment foreseeably caused -- lost business, for example, or the cost of substitute financing while the property sat tied up.
Subdivision (b) then puts a ceiling on the whole recovery: the plaintiff's liability for wrongful attachment cannot exceed the amount of the undertaking filed under § 489.210 and § 489.220. That is the entire point of requiring the undertaking in the first place -- it is not just a formality, it is the outer limit of what a defendant can collect from this particular cause of action, however large the actual damages turn out to be.
Section 490.020(a) allows recovery of all damages proximately caused by the wrongful attachment plus all costs and expenses, including attorney's fees, reasonably expended in defeating the attachment.
Yes. Section 490.020(b) limits the plaintiff's liability for wrongful attachment to the amount of the undertaking filed to obtain the writ or temporary protective order.
Yes, if reasonably expended. Section 490.020(a)(2) includes attorney's fees among the costs and expenses reasonably spent defeating the attachment.
Section 490.020(b) still caps recovery at the undertaking amount for this cause of action, though § 490.060 preserves any separate common law theory of recovery that might not carry the same cap.
Amended by Stats. 1982, Ch. 1198, Sec. 54. Operative July 1, 1983, by Sec. 70 of Ch. 1198.