Rule 90.09.Claims of Third Parties--Notice--Intervention.

Garnished property does not always belong only to the debtor. When a garnishee’s interrogatory answers reveal that someone else — not the debtor and not the garnishor — claims an interest in all or part of the property, Rule 90.09 requires the garnishor to try to bring that person into the case. Notice goes out by registered or certified mail, addressed to that person’s last known address as disclosed in the garnishee’s answers, and it must ask for a return receipt signed by the addressee alone. The garnishor has to send this notice within ten days after the garnishee’s answers to interrogatories are served.

Once notified, the third party has a real chance to protect that interest by intervening in the garnishment proceeding under the general rule governing intervention. The rule sets a clock on that opportunity, too: anyone notified under Rule 90.09(a) must move to intervene within fifteen days of receiving the notice.

This process matters because a garnishment judgment can otherwise resolve competing claims to the same property without the true owner ever getting a say. By requiring notice and giving a defined window to intervene, Rule 90.09 gives a third-party claimant a real chance to be heard before the court decides who gets the garnished property.