Court Opinion

ID: 9673264
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:09:19.541178+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:21.178079
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(concurring). A 1974 amendment to the Revised Judicature Act1 eliminated prejudgment *417garnishment to secure payment of a judgment that might be obtained. Prejudgment garnishment is now available only to secure "judicial jurisdiction” of a principal defendant.2
The amendment is applicable "to all actions pending or commenced on or after the effective date”.3
I agree with the majority, for different reasons, that the present phase of the litigation, between the plaintiff judgment creditor and the garnishee defendant bank, is not an "action pending” within the meaning of that term as used in this legislation.
I
The majority states that the amendment bars "only the issuance of prejudgment writs of garnishment after the effective date.” Under the majority’s construction, the amendment, in practical effect, applies to actions commenced after the effective date; had the Legislature so intended it would not have made the act applicable "to all actions pending or commenced” (emphasis supplied).
Prejudgment writs of garnishment, when issued at all, usually were issued at the time the action was commenced on the plaintiff’s affidavit that he *418"is justly apprehensive of the loss of his claim against the defendant unless a writ of garnishment is issued”.4
Since relatively few plaintiffs who did not know of garnishable funds or who were not so apprehensive at the time the action was commenced, thereafter learned of such funds or became apprehensive and acted on that new information or sense of insecurity by causing a writ of garnishment to issue before obtaining a judgment, only a small proportion of the actions commenced before the effective date of the amendment in which writs of garnishment ultimately were issued are affected by the retroactivity provision as construed by the majority; the amendment applies retroactively only in the atypical case.
The apparent purpose of this legislation was to relieve principal defendants of the burden of having funds frozen during often prolonged civil litigation.
Consistent with that purpose the Legislature made this new policy applicable to "actions pending”, thereby making the amendment retroactive.
The apparent purpose of retroactivity was to require the release of funds garnished5 before the effective date. It is not consistent with that purpose to deny the benefit of retroactivity to principal defendants in the typical case where the writ of garnishment w;as issued and funds were garnished before the effective date.
Moreover, the majority’s construction unnecessarily and, I think, unwisely exposes to action by unpaid judgment creditors a garnishee defendant who, relying on the amendment and the ordinary *419meaning of the word "pending”, released impounded funds to the principal defendant.
In ordinary usage, the pendency of an action does not depend on when it was commenced; an action continues to be pending during an appeal.6 Lawyers advising banks and other garnishee defendants holding funds impounded by a pre-effective date garnishment would have understandably advised their clients that upon the effectiveness of the amendment they were obliged to release the funds to the principal defendant.
II
The retroactivity provision of the amendatory act is concerned with garnishment as it affects principal defendants, and the extent of the retro-activity can properly be limited on that basis.
It is beyond the remedial purpose of the retroactivity and the meaning of the term "actions pending” as used in this legislation for the amendment to be effective in a situation that does not tend to benefit the principal defendant or a person claiming in respect to him.7
In this case the funds had been turned over to the principal defendant’s receiver before the enactment of the amendment. The funds were not re*420leased by the bank to the principal defendant in reliance on the legislative directive. Retroactivity in this case would not tend to benefit the principal defendant or a person claiming in respect to him. On that basis I concur in the majority’s disposition of this appeal.

 1974 PA 371.

 The pertinent provision of the amended statute reads:
"(3) A writ of garnishment may be issued before judgment only as provided in this subsection. Upon ex parte application showing that the person against whom the claim is asserted is not subject to the judicial jurisdiction of the state, or, after diligent effort, cannot be served with process as required to subject him to the judicial jurisdiction of the state, a copy of the writ of garnishment shall be served upon the person against whom the claim is made in the same manner as provided by the rules of the supreme court for service of process in other civil actions in which personal jurisdiction over the defendant is not required. Upon rendition of judgment in the principal action, the obligation or property garnished shall be applied to the satisfaction of the judgment.” MCLA 600.4011; MSA 27A.4011.

 1974 PA 371, § 3.

 GCR 1963, 738.2(3)

 I accept the usage reflected in the amendment. See fn 2, supra.

 Snyder v Buck, 340 US 15, 20; 71 S Ct 93; 95 L Ed 15 (1950); Matter of Natanson, 276 App Div 745, 749; 98 NYS2d 155, 159 (1950); Nicastro v United States, 206 F2d 89, 92 (CA 10, 1953); Butcher v Brouwer, 120 P2d 506, 507 (Cal App, 1941); United States v Claus, 5 FRD 278 (ED NY, 1946). See, generally, 1 Am Jur 2d, Actions, § 91, p 620.

 The majority states that "the writ and the judgment against the principal defendant * * * were not challenged by the party the statute was designed to protect”. I cannot join in a "standing” analysis. Although the amendment is designed to protect principal defendants, not garnishee defendants, a garnishee defendant who, following the amendment, in apparent reliance on the retroactivity provision, released garnished funds to a principal defendant has standing to assert the protection of the amendment.