Opinion ID: 1058572
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Person Making a Payment to the Judgment Debtor

Text: The Firms contend that even if their prior arguments are incorrect, and Wu's garnishment summons can reach the trust account interests owned by Tseng, the circuit court nonetheless erred because the requirements of Code § 8.01-502 were not met. The Firms argue this is so because they were persons making a payment to the judgment debtor within the meaning of Code § 8.01-502 and thus entitled to require strict compliance with the statute's requirements, including service of the notice of lien upon Tseng, before the lien of the writ of fieri facias was effective. We have not previously considered who is a person making a payment to the judgment debtor under Code § 8.01-502. However, if a party falls within that category, the Firms are correct that no liability under the writ of fieri facias attaches as to them until the notice requirements of the statute have been met. Garnishment, like other lien enforcement remedies authorizing seizure of property, is a creature of statute unknown to the common law, and hence the provisions of the statute must be strictly satisfied. Network Solutions, Inc., 259 Va. at 768, 529 S.E.2d at 85 (citing Long v. Ryan, 71 Va. (30 Gratt.) 718, 724 (1878); Mantz v. Hendley, 12 Va. (2 Hen. & M.) 308, 315 (1808)). If Tseng were a plumber and provided plumbing services to the Firms, then their payment to Tseng for those services would clearly be a Code § 8.01-502 payment to the judgment debtor. In that case, the lien of fieri facias would not cause a liability on the part of the Firms for making the plumbing payment to Tseng until he had been properly served with notice of the lien. However, the Firms' claim of a statutory payment in this case is far more attenuated, if not illusory, than the foregoing example. Without citation to any authority, the Firms contend that they made a constructive payment to Tseng each time the Firms withdrew money from the trust accounts to pay their legal fees and costs. [6] Based on their view that any obligation on their part to Tseng was purely a contractual indebtedness to him, the Firms argue that each time they paid themselves from the trust accounts they were simultaneously discharging their own obligation to pay Tseng the identical sum from the retainer deposits. This legal fiction was the basis for the Code § 8.01-502 defense the Firms argued to the circuit court. In effect, what has happened, Your Honor, is the law firms did the work, the obligation to pay us was incurred. Rather than give the money back to Mr. Tseng so that he could then pay us, what happened was in the nature of a setoff, and that is a payment. [O]ur obligation to Mr. Tseng for what he deposited with us was reduced pro tanto by the amount that he was obligated to pay us for our services, or reimburse us for the expenses we had incurred in the course of that representation. . . . [a]nd by discharging the obligation that we had to Mr. Tseng, we made a payment to him. We disagree with the Firms. There is no hint in Code § 8.01-502 that any artifice or legal fiction is contemplated by the plain language of the statute. The words of the statute mean what they say and we may not read into a statute a meaning contrary to its clear language. Blowe v. Peyton, 208 Va. 68, 74, 155 S.E.2d 351, 356 (1967) (when construing simple, clear and unambiguous language . . . we read it to mean what it says.); Chase v. Daimler-Chrysler Corp., 266 Va. 544, 547-48, 587 S.E.2d 521, 522 (2003) ([T]he intention of the legislature . . . must be gathered from the words used, unless a literal construction would involve a manifest absurdity.). The service requirements of Code § 8.01-502 apply only where the garnishee actually makes a payment to the judgment debtor. Simply put, the Firms never made a payment to Tseng; they paid themselves. When the Firms withdrew Tseng's property from the trust accounts, they made no payment to Tseng, Wu's judgment debtor. Instead, the Firms put Tseng's money into their pockets or the pockets of their nominees, but never Tseng. Consequently, the Firms are not person[s] making a payment to the judgment debtor within the intendment of Code § 8.01-502 and the notice requirements of that statute cannot be claimed by them. Therefore, the failure to make service upon Tseng under that statute has no effect on the Firms' liability to Wu under the garnishments.