Foreign Attachment - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition foreign-attachment

Definition :

Foreign Attachment, a custom which prevails in the city of London, whereby a debt owing to a defendant, sued in the Court of the Mayor or Sheriff, may be attached in the hands of the debtor. The custom was certified by the Recorder of London, in the reign o Edward IV., to be, that if a plaint be affirmed in London before, etc., against any person, and it be returned nihil, if the plaintiff will surmise that another person within the city is a debtor to the defendant in any sum, he shall have garnishment against him to warn him to come in and answer whether he be indebted in the manner alleged; and if he comes and does not deny the debt, it shall be attached in his habds, and after four defaults, recorded on the part of the defendant, such person shall find new surety to the plaintiff for the said debt, and judgment shall be that the plaintiff shall have judgment against him and that he shall be quit against the other after execution sued out by the plaintiff. Consult Brandon on Foreign Attachment, and see Cox v. Lord Mayor of London, (1867) LR 2 HL 239; Mayor of London v. London Joint Stock Bank, (1881) 6 App Cas 393, which exempts corporations from the process, and decides that fictitious summonses render it invalid. These decisions have had the effect of reducing foreign attachment to little more than a subject of historical interest.