812.02.Garnishment before and after judgment.

Section 812.02 fixes the timing of a garnishment action to specific milestones in the underlying case. Before judgment, a plaintiff can start a garnishment once a summons and complaint have been filed in an action for contract damages, an action on a judgment, or a tort action where a writ of attachment could issue, or once certain contract claims not yet due would independently support attachment. After judgment, a plaintiff can start a garnishment once execution on an in personam judgment is issuable.

The section also handles a defendant who is hard to serve. If the plaintiff cannot obtain personal service, and has filed the summons and the sheriff’s return with the clerk, a judge may allow substituted service on the defendant’s employer, but only if the plaintiff shows the defendant’s current place of employment, that a cause of action exists, and that a reasonable effort was made to achieve personal service. Before taking judgment in that kind of case, the plaintiff must present an affidavit from the employer confirming the defendant received the summons.

Two further limits round out the section. A plaintiff cannot garnish the property of a spouse who was not a defendant in the principal action unless that spouse is also made a defendant in the garnishment action itself. And every garnishment action remains subject to the restriction in Section 806.25, which voids any note’s authorization to confess judgment for the debtor when the note was executed after June 18, 1972.

Finally, the section lets a plaintiff go back to the well: the plaintiff may proceed against other garnishees in the same way, and may proceed against the same garnishee more than once if the plaintiff has reason to believe that garnishee became liable again after the first attempt.