Court Opinion

ID: 9576134
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:21:10.342857+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:59:36.208846
License: Public Domain

Ingram, Justice,
dissenting.
After further study and reflection, I am not persuaded that all post-judgment garnishments under the Georgia statute are unconstitutional. It is sufficient here to say that, at least, the decisions of the U. S. Supreme Court leave the matter in doubt. The U. S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit recently had occasion to consider a post-judgment garnishment of wages in Florida and upheld it. The rationale of that decision is helpful in the present case.
"Unlike the prejudgment creditor, the creditor here *13has a judicially-awarded judgment evidencing the debtor’s debt. Thus, its interest is not the freezing of debtor assets pending adjudication of alleged debt, but is rather the enforcement of the judgment against those assets. This factor sharply distinguishes prejudgment from post-judgment garnishment cases, and, as a result, the holding in Sniadach does not directly apply here.” Brown v. Liberty Loan Corp. of Duval, 45 LW 2214, U. S. Court of Appeals (5th Cir., Oct. 6, 1976).
The only real troublesome question that I continue to see is the matter of post-judgment garnishment when used to collect periodic alimony payments alleged to be in arrears where an execution for the garnishment is obtained ex parte. These are different from most post-judgment garnishment cases and perhaps require additional safeguards to the alleged debtor such as an opportunity to be heard on the correctness of the sums alleged to be in arrears. See my concurrence in Coursin v. Harper, 236 Ga. 854 (1976).
The present case is an ordinary post-judgment garnishment case and I am not convinced that federal decisions mandate the invalidity of the statute under which it was issued. I, therefore, dissent to the judgment in this case.