That, said DeVaney, was precisely the problem. Thriftway wasn't out to recover losses by means of its suit against him. DeVaney's claim was that the company wanted to close down his comments about corporate behavior. Discovery, chiefly by deposition, is the process by which one side learns about the other's case. Subpoenas require that witnesses testify.
Attachments are writs directing a law enforcement officer to take possession of property.
So the court combined the two legal theories into one, and screened the facts of DeVaney's case through the combined claim. DeVaney won, because in its own case, Thriftway refused to deliver the documents that DeVaney could have used to prove himself correct and because Thriftway should have known it didn't have probable cause to sue. This was new law for New Mexico, although not for many other states. In DeVaney's case, Supreme Court justices cleared things up a little. Nevertheless, they legislated in the process.