812.01.Commencement of garnishment.

Section 812.01 sets the stage for every garnishment action that follows. Subsection (1) gives a creditor the right to proceed against anyone who is indebted to the creditor’s debtor, or who holds property belonging to that debtor, or who holds property reachable to satisfy a marital-property obligation described elsewhere in the statutes. It also defines the vocabulary the rest of the subchapter uses: “plaintiff” includes a judgment creditor, and “defendant” includes a judgment debtor or, in cases tied to that marital-property obligation, the judgment debtor’s spouse or former spouse.

Subsection (2) marks the boundary of this subchapter’s reach: it governs every garnishment action except the garnishment of earnings, which has its own subchapter later in the chapter. Where this subchapter does not say otherwise, the general rules of civil practice and procedure apply, and a garnishment action is treated as a separate action from whatever underlying case produced the debt.

The remaining subsections restrict who can start a garnishment action and what it can be used for. An individual may bring a garnishment action personally or through a licensed attorney, but nobody may bring one on someone else’s behalf without being a licensed attorney. And the section flatly bars using garnishment to recover the price or value of alcohol beverages sold at retail, a limit with no exceptions built into the text.