Court Opinion

ID: 9764638
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:34:15.561189+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:59.295166
License: Public Domain

McKUSICK, Chief Justice,
with whom BRODY, J., joins, dissenting.
I disagree with the court’s conclusion that a chose in action cannot be reached by a turnover order issued pursuant to the statute on enforcement of money judgments, 14 M.R.S.A. §§ 3120-3137 (1980 & Supp.1990). The plain language of section 3131, governing turnover orders, allows New England Mortgage Services Company (New England Mortgage) to obtain a turnover order on Catherine Petit’s pending legal malpractice suit.
Section 3131(1) provides that the procedure by which the District Court issues a turnover order after a judgment debtor discloses assets:
When it is shown at a hearing ... that the judgment debtor owns personal property or real property which is not wholly exempt from attachment or execution pursuant to sections 4421 to 4426, the court shall determine the value of the property or interest and the extent to which the property or interest is exempt. Upon request of the judgment creditor, the court shall order the judgment debtor to turn over to the judgment creditor in partial or full satisfaction of the judgment, interest and costs, such items of property which are not in whole *1057or in part exempt and the value of which is determined to be less than or equal to the amount owed on the judgment, interest and costs.
(Emphasis added) The only property that need not be turned over to a judgment creditor is property that is exempt from attachment and execution pursuant to 14 M.R.S.A. §§ 4421-4426 (Supp.1990). Those sections offer no protection from a turnover order for Petit’s pending cause of action for legal malpractice. A plaintiffs property interest in a pending malpractice action is omitted from the “legal awards” listed in section 4422(14) the right to receive which are exempt from attachment, whereas the right to receive other types of legal awards are explicitly included in the list of property exempt from attachment:
§ 4422. Exempt property
The following property is exempt from attachment and execution ...:
14. Legal awards; life insurance benefits. The debtor’s right to receive or property that is traceable to the following:
A. An award under a crime victim’s reparation law;
B. A payment on account of the wrongful death of an individual of whom the debtor was a dependent, to the extent reasonably necessary for the support of the debtor and any dependent of the debtor;
C. A payment under a life insurance contract that insured the life of an individual of whom the debtor was a dependent on the date of the individual’s death, to the extent reasonably necessary for the support of the debtor and any dependent of the debtor;
D. A payment, not to exceed $7,500, on account of personal bodily injury, not including pain and suffering or compensation for actual pecuniary loss, of the debtor or an individual of whom the debtor is a dependent; or
E. A payment in compensation of loss of future earnings of the debtor or an individual of whom the debtor is or was a dependent, to the extent reasonably necessary for the support of the debtor and any dependent of the debt- or.
Moreover, since originally enacted by P.L. 1971, ch. 408, § 1, section 3131 has been changed to make formerly unreachable property available to judgment creditors. Section 3131(2) now provides that property partially exempt from attachment and execution may nevertheless be sold to satisfy a judgment:
[T]he court shall order the sale by the judgment creditor of property owned by the judgment debtor in full or partial satisfaction of the amount owed on the judgment ... [w]hen wholly nonexempt property is not available to fully satisfy the judgment and it is determined that the value of partially exempt property is greater than the exemption available for that item and the property cannot practically be divided into its exempt and non exempt portions ...
14 M.R.S.A. § 3131(2)(B).
Thus, contrary to the District Court’s ruling, the unqualified statutory language gave it authority to order Petit to “turn over” her pending malpractice claim to New England Mortgage in partial or full satisfaction of the judgment it holds against Petit. That order would have had the effect of a lien on the pending legal malpractice cause of action and any judgment or settlement obtained by Petit. That lien is established by subsection 9 of section 3131:
Lien. An order entered pursuant to this section shall constitute a lien against the property which is the subject of the order and against the proceeds of any disposition of the property by the judgment debtor which occurs at any time after entry of the order. The lien shall extend to proceeds of any disposition of the property, real or personal, subject to the lien of the judgment creditor to the extent that a secured party would have an interest in the proceeds under Title 11, section 9-306.
14 M.R.S.A. § 3131(9). The court in its opinion has paraphrased the quoted subsection 9 (see Maj.Op. at 1055) in a way that may give the impression that the subsec*1058tion refers generally to all of the provisions of article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code, including the provision that prevents the giving of a security interest in a tort suit, 11 M.R.S.A. § 9-104(11) (Supp.1990). In reality, subsection 9 refers specifically only to 11 M.R.S.A. § 9-306 (1964 & Supp. 1990). I read subsection 9’s reference to section 9-306 to be nothing more than an effort to apply in a short-hand fashion the priority rules for proceeds set forth in that section of the Commercial Code to the lien created by a turnover order. Had the legislature intended section 3131 to be governed by all of article 9, section 3131 would have said so. Furthermore, the mere fact that article 9 would prevent the voluntary creation of a security interest in a tort suit such as Petit’s for legal malpractice does not mean that a statutory lien could not be imposed. In the priority rules of article 9, “lien creditors” are distinguished from the holders of secured interests. See 11 M.R. S.A. § 9-301 (Supp.1990). Even if any lien that New England Mortgage were to obtain on Petit’s proceeds from the malpractice suit in the form of a settlement or judgment could not amount to a security interest, New England Mortgage would still benefit from a creditor’s lien that would place it in a better position with respect to its judgment against Petit than any later lienholder.
The court’s rationale, implicit or explicit, for deciding that Petit’s cause of action is not subject to a turnover order and lien because it would not have been attachable or assignable at common law is shaky at best in its underlying premise. The common law of Maine considers Petit’s legal malpractice claim one for an economic harm arising from a contractual relationship. See Thurston v. Continental Cas. Co., 567 A.2d 922, 923 (Me.1989). None of the traditional reasons for preventing assignment of tort claims for personal injuries is relevant here. See Rice v. Stone, 83 Mass. (1 Allen) 566, 569-70 (1861) (common law prevented assignment of personal torts because personal harms could not be valued in an economic sense, because a third party could not represent the feelings “of one whose reputation or domestic peace has been destroyed,” and because “litigious persons, whether rich or poor, [would] harass and annoy others, if they were allowed to purchase claims for pain and suffering”). There would be no more reason in this case to prevent Petit from making a voluntary assignment to New England Mortgage than there was in Thurston, where we allowed an assignment of a claim by a plaintiff in a malpractice action who had been a defendant in an underlying products liability action, to the plaintiff who had prevailed in the underlying action.1 Moreover, because of the rule of law laid down in Thurston, New England Mortgage is at risk if Petit assigns her interest in the pending suit, her only substantial asset, to a third party.
In any event, whatever the status of an assignment of a legal malpractice claim was at common law or is today, there is no reason to believe that the legislature found any common law principles regarding the nonassignment of tort claims so overwhelmingly compelling that it felt bound to follow them when it enacted the statute. The statute’s “clear and explicit language” allowing a judgment creditor to reach all but a limited list of exempt forms of property is itself an “abrogation” of the common law. Cf. Rubin v. Josephson, 478 A.2d 665, 671 (Me.1984) (“we will not interpret a statute as modifying the common law in the absence of clear and explicit language showing such modification or ab*1059rogation was intended”). In light of the broad purpose of the disclosure statute, “to provide an efficient procedure of the enforcement of money judgments,” 14 M.R. S.A. § 3120, and the plain language of section 3131(1), I believe New England Mortgage is statutorily entitled to reach Petit’s cause of action to satisfy its judgment.

. The court’s opinion cites Thurston for the proposition that "Petit could not voluntarily assign her malpractice action to New England Mortgage because the latter has neither the intimate connection nor the clear interest in the claim necessary to become a party to that action" (Maj. Op. at 1056). Although Thurston involved an assignee who was connected to the underlying action in which the alleged malpractice occurred, the court did not expressly limit assignment to that factual scenario. On the contrary, the court specifically noted that it was not presented with the assignment of a claim to an unrelated assignee. See Thurston v. Continental Cos. Co., 567 A.2d 922, 923 (Me.1989).