The Citation to Discover Assets to a Third Party or “third-party citation” allows a judgment creditor to serve a citation on a third-party – a bank, for instance – who holds property of the judgment debtor and attach that property until the court orders the property released. See 735 ILCS 5/2-1402(f)(1).
The third-party citation prohibits the citation respondent from allowing any transfer or other disposition of debtor’s property pending further order of court or termination of the citation.
When a bank is the third-party citation respondent, the creditor serves the citation upon the bank (either by personal service or certified mail) and upon receipt of the citation, the bank must freeze the debtor’s account until the court enters an order dismissing the citation or releasing the account.
What’s simultaneously enticing (to a creditor) and sinister (to a debtor) about third-party citation practice is that the creditor doesn’t have to notify the debtor of the third-party citation until 3 business days have passed. 735 ILCS 5/2-1402(b). This makes it next to impossible for a debtor to deplete his bank account(s) and hide funds – something which could easily happen if he caught wind of a creditor’s attempts to seize his accounts.
Mendez v. Republic Bank, 2013 WL 3821532 (7th Cir. 2013), examines whether a bank that unfreezes the wrong bank accounts (and allows a judgment debtor to transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process) can be liable to the judgment creditor for violating a citation’s restraining provisions.
The Court affirmed the trial court’s finding that the bank was not liable to the plaintiff.
The plaintiff won a judgment and froze some 22 separate accounts of the corporate judgment debtor. After several of the banks moved to quash various citations, the district court judge entered an order requiring that all bank accounts except for three (3) specified accounts be unfrozen.
The defendant bank released from the citation two of the debtors’ accounts which totalled over $700,000 – all of which of course was dissipated by the debtors within a few months.
Plaintiff then moved to refreeze the accounts and to hold the bank liable for violating the citation restraining provision.
The District Judge, while originally siding with plaintiff, reversed herself and found the bank not liable. The reason: the prior judge’s order requiring the bank to unfreeze accounts was ambiguous “at best” and the bank’s actions were a reasonable response to and interpretation of that order. *4.
The Seventh Circuit affirmed, noting that the prior judge’s order unfreezing certain accounts was poorly drafted and the defendant bank followed the most reasonable interpretation of the order.
Acknowledging that under Illinois law, a citation respondent can be liable for any transfer that violates a citation’s restraining provisions (regardless of whether there is intent or contempt), the bank’s actions were reasonable in light of the order’s text.* 11.
Take-away: In my experience, from a creditor’s standpoint, attaching a corporate debtor’s bank account via a third-party citation is often my only real chance of collecting anything on a judgment. Any real estate is usually mortgaged to the hilt, and the corporate debtor often lacks sufficient accounts receivable, inventory or personal property to meaningfully make a dent in the judgment amount.
This case shows why hyper-precision in drafting citation orders is critical in post-judgment enforcement proceedings. If the order is not drafted by the parties (i.e. it’s prepared by the court) and it’s text is unclear, it is incumbent on a party to file a motion seeking clarification of the order.
