Garnishment
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in law, (1) a warning or legal notice to the agent or attorney of an absconding debtor to appear in court or give information. (2) A warning or legal notice not to pay money, etc., to a defendant, but to appear and answer to a plaintiff creditor's suit. (3) A fee. GARO (gärō) HILLS, a district of India, forming the S. W. corner of Assam; area, 3,350 square miles. It is a mountainous and forest region intersected by tributaries of the Brahmaputra. The native Garos are a robust and active race. Among them the wife is regarded as the head of the family, and property descends through females. Pop. about 154,000. GARONNE (gä-ron') (ancient Garumna), the principal river in the S. W. of France, rising within the Spanish frontier in the Val d'Aran, at the base of Mount Maladetta, in the Pyrenees, 6,142 feet above sea-level. About 26 miles from its source it enters the French territory in the department of Haute Garonne, flows in a general N. E. course to Toulouse, then bends to the N. W., and continues to flow in that direction till joined by the Dordogne, about 20 miles below Bordeaux, and widening afterward into the estuary which bears the name of the Gironde, it enters the Atlantic at the Pointe de Grave. The estuary, the largest in France, is nearly 50 miles long. The total length of the river is about 346 miles; it drains an area of about 22,020 square miles. Its navigation, which, however, is much impeded above Toulouse, commences for small craft at Cazères; ocean steamers go up to Bordeaux. Its principal affluents are the Tarn, Lot, and Dordogne, on the right; and on the left, the Save, Gers, and Baise. At Toulouse it is joined by the Canal du Midi, which running E. to the Mediterranean, forms with the Garonne a means of communication between that sea and the Atlantic; and the river's own "side canal," starting also from Toulouse, runs along the right bank, receives the Montauban canal, and spans several streams in its course, crossing the Garonne itself at Agen by a magnificent viaduct, and returning to the river at Castets, after a total length of 120 miles. The valley of the Garonne is noted for the beauty of its scenery, but is liable to destructive inundations.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's definition of 1921 still describes the basic device — notice to a third party holding a debtor's money not to pay it over — and "garnishee" remains a live verb in American and English courts. What has changed is the wall of protective law built around it. In Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp. (1969) the U.S. Supreme Court held that freezing a worker's wages before judgment, without notice or a hearing, violated due process, and the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act of 1968 capped ordinary garnishment at roughly a quarter of disposable earnings and forbade firing an employee over a single garnishment. Meanwhile Collier's third sense, "a fee" — the old garnish money that new prisoners paid to jailers and fellow inmates — is long dead, while the commonest garnishments today are automatic wage withholding for child support and defaulted student loans, which Collier's could not have foreseen.
Written for this edition, 2026.