Johnson Motor Company, Inc., Appellant v. Willie Cue, defendant/debtor, Respondent, v. Northern Life Insurance Company, Respondent, 352 N.W.2d 114

Summary

After securing a judgment against defendant debtor, the creditor served a garnishment summons and interrogatories on the garnishee, an insurance company. Although it returned a sworn garnishment disclosure stating that no money or property was owed to the debtor, the garnishee returned answers to interrogatories two weeks later indicating that it owed the debtor payments on an annuity policy. Four months later, the debtor filed a petition for bankruptcy. Several days later, the creditor requested leave to serve a supplemental complaint against the garnishee to make it a party to its action against the debtor. The district court denied the motion because the automatic stay imposed by the bankruptcy filing was a bar to the creditor's recovery from the garnishee because the judgment reached only the debtor's assets and not the garnishee's assets. On appeal, the court allowed the appeal pursuant to Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 103.03(e) and affirmed the district court's final order against the ...