Volume 70 Issue 2 Dickinson Law Review - Volume 70, 1965-1966 1-1-1966 Garnishment of Wages in Pennsylvania: Its History and Rationale J.M. Boddington Follow this and additional works at: https://ideas.dickinsonlaw.psu.edu/dlra Recommended Citation J.M. Boddington, Garnishment of Wages in Pennsylvania: Its History and Rationale, 70 DICK. L. REV. 199 (1966). Available at: https://ideas.dickinsonlaw.psu.edu/dlra/vol70/iss2/4 This Comment is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews at Dickinson Law IDEAS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dickinson Law Review by an authorized editor of Dickinson Law IDEAS. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. COMMENT I GARNISHMENT OF WAGES IN PENNSYLVANIA: ITS HISTORY AND RATIONALE* Unlike the majority of jurisdictions, Pennsylvania has per- sistently exempted a debtor's wages or salary from attachment and execution by process against his employer as garnishee. This Com- ment will trace the history and application of this limitation upon the rights of creditors, compare the Pennsylvania position with that of several other states, and attempt to reevaluate its rationale in the context of contemporary commercial practice and policy. By definition, garnishment is a "statutory proceeding where- by [a] person's property, money, or credits in possession or under control of, or owing by, another are applied to payment of [the] former's debt to [a] third person . ."' The term is also said to describe a warning to the person in whose hands the debtor's ef- fects are attached not to pay or deliver to the debtor, but to ap- pear and answer the claiming creditor's suit.2 As applied to wages and salaries, the process requires an employer to withhold all or part of an employee's compensation and pay it over directly to, or to the account of, the employee's creditor.