Rule 85.18.Multiple Attachments--Priorities--How and Where Resolved.

Because Rule 85.06 allows more than one writ of attachment to be outstanding at once, it is entirely possible for the same piece of property to be attached by several different claimants in separate actions. Rule 85.18 tells the court what to do when that happens. The court is given broad authority to sort out the competing claims: it determines priority among the attachments, examines their validity and good faith, weighs their force and effect against one another, and may dissolve any of them, in whole or in part, or make whatever other order the situation calls for.

The rule then answers a jurisdictional question that would otherwise be tricky: if the competing writs came from different courts, which court decides? Rule 85.18 answers that all matters relating to the attachments are determined by the court out of which the first writ of attachment was issued. That avoids inconsistent rulings from multiple courts each trying to sort out the same tangle of claims to the same property.

The rule draws a careful line, though. Only matters relating to the attachments themselves get funneled to the first court. Issues other than the attachments — meaning the merits of each underlying claim — remain in whichever court each case is pending. Rule 85.19 works alongside this rule by addressing what the competing claimants may argue against one another once the attachment questions are before the right court.