Opinion ID: 538484
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Attachment Bond.

Text: 24 Doehr claims that Sec. 52-278e(a)(1) is also defective because it does not require the plaintiff to post a bond or other security before obtaining an attachment. Most state attachment statutes include at least some procedure for indemnifying the defendant for any loss caused by a wrongful attachment. See Shaumyan, 716 F.Supp. at 81. In Mitchell, for example, the Louisiana sequestration statute required the plaintiff to file a bond sufficient    to protect the [defendant] against all damages in the event the sequestration is shown to have been improvident. 416 U.S. at 606, 94 S.Ct. at 1899. The statute further empowered the court to assess damages in favor of the defendant, including attorney's fees, whether the writ is dissolved on motion or after trial on the merits. Id. at 617, 94 S.Ct. at 1905. These damages were not limited to actual out-of-pocket losses, but included injury to social standing or reputation as well as humiliation and mortification. Id. at 606 n. 8, 94 S.Ct. at 1899 n. 8. 25 The Mitchell Court clearly found the bond requirement of the Louisiana statute to play an essential role in protecting the defendant from the effects of an erroneous seizure. See 416 U.S. at 610, 617, 94 S.Ct. at 1901, 1905. Justice Powell, in his concurring opinion in North Georgia Finishing, stated that the provision of adequate security is an indispensable procedural safeguard, 419 U.S. at 611, 95 S.Ct. at 725, and four circuit courts have expressed the view that the lack of a bond or damages provision would invalidate an attachment statute. See Watertown Equip. Co. v. Norwest Bank Watertown, 830 F.2d 1487, 1493-94 (8th Cir.1987) (Clearly, the centrality of an adequate bond for the protection of the debtor was well established by 1975.), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1001, 108 S.Ct. 1723, 100 L.Ed.2d 188 (1988); Jones v. Preuit & Mauldin, 822 F.2d 998, 1002 (11th Cir.1987) (debtor's financial interest must be protected in the event of a wrongful prejudgment attachment, either via the posting of a bond by the creditor who seeks the writ, or by allowing an action for damages suffered as a result of a wrongful attachment), vacated on other grounds, 851 F.2d 1321 (11th Cir.1988) (in banc), vacated and remanded mem., --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 1105, 103 L.Ed.2d 170 (1989); United States v. Vertol H21C, Reg. No. N8540, 545 F.2d 648, 652 (9th Cir.1976); Jonnet v. Dollar Savings Bank of City of New York, 530 F.2d 1123, 1130 (3d Cir.1976) ([T]he Pennsylvania attachment rules offer no machinery to indemnify a defendant for damages due to wrongful attachment   . A constitutionally valid statute must afford such protection, by bond or otherwise.). 26 The state concedes that defendants must be protected against the wrongful attachment of their property, but insists that Connecticut's vexatious litigation statute, Conn.Gen.Stat. Sec. 52-568, provides adequate protection. Under that statute, 27 Any person who commences and prosecutes any civil action or complaint against another, in his own name, or the name of others, or asserts a defense to any civil action or complaint commenced and prosecuted by another (1) without probable cause, shall pay such other person double damages, or (2) without probable cause, and with a malicious intent unjustly to vex and trouble such other person, shall pay him treble damages. 28 The state argues that this remedy is all that due process requires, an assertion that, on the surface, appears to find support in the eleventh circuit's dictum in Jones that a debtor's interests can be adequately protected either via the posting of a bond by the creditor who seeks the writ, or by allowing an action for damages suffered as a result of a wrongful attachment. Jones, 822 F.2d at 1002 (emphasis added); see also Shaumyan, 716 F.Supp. at 80-81 (suggesting that Jones makes a separate action for damages an option to the preseizure posting of a creditor's bond). The action for damages discussed in Jones, however, was made part of the attachment procedure itself, and the creditor was required to post a bond to cover any such damages. See Jones, 822 F.2d at 1003-04 (discussing Ala.Code Secs. 35-11-111 and 6-6-148). Thus in Jones the defendant could both challenge the propriety of the attachment and recover his damages in the same proceeding, held before, during, or after the action in which the debtor appears as a defendant. Jones, 822 F.2d at 1004 (citing First National Bank v. Cheney, 120 Ala. 117, 23 So. 733 (1897)). 29 It is entirely different to require the defendant, as Connecticut does, to wait for judgment in the underlying action, and only then prosecute a claim for vexatious litigation. This subjects the defendant not only to the delay and expense of additional litigation, but deprives him of any remedy whatsoever if the underlying action is settled. Blake v. Levy, 191 Conn. 257, 464 A.2d 52 (1983) (When a lawsuit ends in a negotiated settlement or compromise, it does not terminate in the plaintiff's favor and therefore will not support a subsequent lawsuit for vexatious litigation.). This is particularly troubling in view of the fact that the mere existence of the attachment may weigh heavily in the defendant's decision to reach a settlement. See Note, The Constitutionality of Real Estate Attachments, 37 Wash. & Lee L.Rev. 701 n. 1 (1980) (Today attachment, if available, is often used as a tactical maneuver to put pressure on a defendant to reach an expeditious settlement of a legal dispute.) (citing New York Judicial Council, Seventh Annual Report 391-93 (1941)); Kheel, New York's Amended Attachment Statute: A Prejudgment Remedy in Need of Further Revision, 44 Brooklyn L.Rev. 199, 201 (1978) (attachment can lead a defendant to settle a dispute promptly although he may think it likely that he would ultimately prevail against plaintiff's claim). 30 For these reasons, we believe that Connecticut's vexatious litigation statute offers inadequate protection against wrongful attachment, and we conclude that the lack of a bond or security provision in the attachment procedure itself is a flaw of constitutional magnitude.