Attachment
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in law, the taking into the custody of the law the person or property of one already before the court, or of one whom it is sought to bring before it. Attachment of person: A writ issued by a court of record, commanding the sheriff to bring before it a person who has been guilty of contempt of court, either in neglect or abuse of its process or of subordinate powers. Attachment of property: A writ issued at the institution or during the progress of an action, commanding the sheriff or other proper officer to attach the property, rights, credits or effects of the defendant to satisfy the demands of the plaintiff. The laws and practice concerning the attachment vary in different countries. In the United States attachment may be defined as the taking into the custody of the law the person or property of one who is already before the court, or of one whom it is sought to bring before the court; also a writ for this purpose. To some extent it is of the nature of a criminal process. In some States a plaintiff can at the beginning of an action to recover money attach the property of the defendant as a security for the payment of the judgment expected to be recovered; and in case of recovery the property is applied in satisfaction of the judgment. But the more usual rule is that there can be no seizure of property, except in specified cases, till the rights of the parties have been settled by judgment of the court. The exceptions are chiefly in cases where the defendant is a non-resident or a fraudulent debtor, or is attempting to conceal or remove his property. In some States, attachments are distinguished as foreign and domestic-the former issued against a non-resident having property within the jurisdiction of the State, the latter against a resident in the State; jurisdiction over the person or property being necessary for an attachment. An attachment issued under a State law which has not been adopted by Congress, or by a rule of court, cannot be sustained in a United States court. Money due to a seaman for wages is not attachable in the hands of a purser, the purser being a distributing agent of the government, and in no sense a debtor of the seaman.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Collier's wrote this in 1921, a creditor in many states could have a sheriff seize a debtor's property or wages at the very start of a suit, before any judgment. The Supreme Court has since made that far harder: Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp. (1969) struck down prejudgment wage garnishment without notice or a hearing, and Fuentes v. Shevin (1972), Mitchell v. W. T. Grant (1974) and North Georgia Finishing (1975) built a due-process framework requiring judicial supervision of ex parte seizures. Collier's rule that state attachment procedures unadopted by Congress "cannot be sustained in a United States court" was reversed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 64 (1938), which expressly borrows state attachment remedies for federal courts. The old "foreign attachment" of a non-resident's local property as a route to jurisdiction was also largely closed off by Shaffer v. Heitner (1977), which required minimum contacts even where property was seized; attachment of the person survives mainly as the body attachment or bench warrant for contempt.
Written for this edition, 2026.