§ 38-5B-2 — Application for suggestee execution against money from state, state agency or political subdivision; extent of lien and continuing levy; priority among suggestee executions

(a) A judgment creditor may apply to the court in which the judgment was recovered or a court having jurisdiction of the same, without notice to the judgment debtor, for a suggestee execution against any money due or to become due within one year after the issuance of the same to the judgment debtor from the state, a state agency or any political subdivision of the state. If satisfactory proof is made, by affidavit or otherwise, of such facts and, where the execution is sought against salary or wages, of the fact that the amount due or to become due as salary or wages after the deduction of state and federal taxes exceeds in any week fifty times the federal minimum hourly wage then in effect, the court, if not a court of record, or if a court of record, the clerk thereof, shall issue a suggestee execution against such money due or to become due to the judgment debtor, and there shall be entered on the face thereof the day and hour of issuance.

The execution and the expenses thereof shall, when served by the officer to whom delivered for collection in the manner hereinafter provided, upon the state, a state agency or political subdivision from which such money is due or may thereafter become due to the judgment debtor, become a lien and continuing levy upon the sums due or to become due to the judgment debtor within one year after the issuance of the execution (but not to exceed twenty percent of the salary or wages due to the judgment debtor or reduce the amount received by him or her per week to an amount less than fifty times the federal minimum hourly wage then in effect) unless sooner satisfied and paid, vacated or modified as hereinafter provided.

Where more than one suggestee execution has been issued pursuant to this section against the same judgment debtor, they shall be satisfied in the order of priority in which they are served upon the state, state agency or political subdivision from which the money is due or becomes due. For purposes of determining the priority, the time that an execution served by mail, as hereinafter provided, is received, and not the time of admission of service, shall control. In the case of two or more executions received in the same mail, delivery priority shall be accorded the one first issued.

(b) The suggestee execution by the judgment creditor provided in this section shall include, to the extent possible, the present address and date of birth of the judgment debtor, which information shall be made available for the purpose of properly identifying the judgment debtor whose salary or wages are being levied upon.

Legislative History

2017 Reg. Sess., SB261; 1979 Reg. Sess., HB1248; 1961 Reg. Sess., HB252; 1939 Reg. Sess., SB4