Western Steel & Ship Repair, Inc. v. RMI, Inc.

RMI, Inc. (RMI) appeals from the trial court order denying its motion to quash a writ of attachment and release the attached property.

In this case the plaintiff obtained an ex parte prejudgment writ of attachment which, although a valid attachment, should not have been issued ex parte. The relevant statutes permit a prompt challenge to the writ of attachment, but forbid review of whether it should have been issued without notice. Although this procedure provides no remedy for the trial court error of unnecessary ex parte issuance of an attachment writ, nevertheless we have concluded the pertinent statutes are valid, both because the prejudgment attachment remedy is confined to narrow circumstances, and also because the debtor may quickly challenge the attachment writ itself. Accordingly, for reasons we shall more fully state below, we will affirm the trial court order here, which denies a motion to quash an ex parte writ of attachment which should have been issued on notice.

Respondent Western Steel and Ship Repair, Inc. (Western) was RMI’s subcontractor on a vessel overhaul job for the United States Navy. Western sued RMI in contract for unpaid amounts allegedly owing…