Opinion ID: 2363417
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Effect of Inability to Garnish Wages on Life of Judgment

Text: The appellant's inability to garnish the wages of the appellee until the effective date of the Social Services Amendments Act of 1974 has no effect upon the life of the judgments upon which the appellant seeks ultimately to execute and no effect upon the necessity to revive a judgment prior to issuing a writ of execution, according to D.C.Code 1973, §§ 15-302, -305. So far as we are concerned, the time periods specified in §§ 15-101 (life of judgment) and -302 (time during which writ of execution may issue), begin at the same moment: when execution might first issue on the judgment. As the appellant has advanced arguments directed at § 15-302, this opinion will first address the effect of the Social Services Amendments Act on that section, and will then address the Act's impact on § 15-101. As all the relevant sections have been quoted previously, they will not be quoted here. The appellant's inability to garnish the wages of the appellee is irrelevant to a ruling on timeliness under § 15-302. The appellant correctly states that the appellee's wages were not subject to garnishment prior to July 1, 1975, because he was an employee of the United States. As of July 1, 1975, by the Social Services Amendments Act of 1974, the United States consented to the garnishment of the wages of its employees where the garnishment is to enforce legal obligations to provide child support or make alimony payments. [51] The appellant contends that a writ issued within three years after she could first have garnished the wages would have issued within the time constraints imposed by § 15-302 of the 1973 District code. To employ the words of the statutes, the question presented is whether applicable provisions of law, as used in § 15-302, includes law relating to the legality of serving a writ upon the United States. We hold that the statutory phrase is not so broad. Section 15-302(a) is designed to pretermit the possibility of a stay preventing execution on the judgment during the prescribed three-year period. Thus, the period begins to run, for example, under Super.Ct.Civ.R. 58, only after the judgment has been entered. In clause (2) [of § 15-302(a)], the reference to `law' is inserted for the purpose of covering cases of stay, if any, not covered by the rules. . . . [52] Therefore, applicable provisions of law would not include the 1974 Social Services Amendments Act. The phrase relates to the status or quality of the judgment rather than to the subject of a possible writ of execution on the judgment. Our interpretation draws support from the predecessor of § 15-302, which was § 15-201 of the 1961 code. [53] In relevant part, it stated that an execution may be suspended only by agreement or by an injunction or by an appeal operating as a supersedeas. The three-year period during which the writ must be issued, began running at the rendition of the judgment or, if suspended by one of these means, at the removal of the suspension. [54] The revised section was written to omit obsolete or superseded matter, and to . . . conform with rules of court adopted since § 15-201 was enacted in 1901. Id. The former section was not so broad as to afford plaintiff her claimed relief here and the revision committee does not appear to have intended a substantive enlargement in addition to its updating. Our narrow reading of the present section, D.C.Code 1973, § 15-302(a)(2), therefore, appears correct. The thrust of our analysis interpreting § 15-302 is also applicable to § 15-101. Section 15-101 states, [f]rom the date when an execution might first be issued; § 15-302 states, [A]fter [a writ of execution] first might have been issued. Under the facts before us, there is no reason to not treat the phrases as equals. Under this interpretation, the life of a judgment may be ascertained by regarding the record and the provisions of law concerning execution and stays of execution. Were we to interpret the sections in the manner that the appellant suggests the ease of determining the viability of a judgment would be undercut. No longer would the life of all judgments be of approximately equal length from the time they were rendered, but the length of each would vary depending upon various facts and law extraneous to the record. Thus, even if the appellant had made a showing that all of the appellee's assets were immune from attachment in aid of execution until the effective date of the Social Services Amendments Act, we would not hold that the Act extended the periods prescribed by §§ 15-101 and -302.