§ 38-5A-3. Application for suggestee execution against salary or wages; extent of lien and continuing levy; exemption; priority among suggestee executions

Codes > Code of West Virginia > Chapter 38 > Article 5A > 38-5A-3. Application

38-5A-3. Application for suggestee execution against salary or wages; extent of lien and continuing levy; exemption; priority among suggestee executions

A judgment creditor may apply to the court in which the judgment was recovered or a court having jurisdiction of the same, without notice to the judgment debtor, for a suggestee execution against any money due or to become due within one year after the issuance of such execution to the judgment debtor as salary or wages arising out of any private employment. If satisfactory proof shall be made, by affidavit or otherwise, of such facts and the fact that the amount due or to become due as salary or wages after the deduction of all state and federal taxes exceeds in any week thirty times the federal minimum hourly wage then in effect, the court, if not a court of record, or if a court of record, the clerk thereof, shall issue a suggestee execution against the salary or wages of the judgment debtor and upon presentation of such execution by the officer to whom delivered for collection to the person or persons from which such salary or wages are due and owing or thereafter may become due and owing to the judgment debtor, the execution and the expenses thereof shall become a lien and continuing levy upon the salary or wages due or to become due to the judgment debtor within one year after the issuance of the same, unless sooner vacated or modified as hereinafter provided, to an amount equal to twenty per centum thereof and no more, but in no event shall the payments in satisfaction of such an execution reduce the amount payable to the judgment debtor to an amount per week that is less than thirty times the federal minimum hourly wage then in effect. Only one such execution shall be satisfied, at one time, except that in the event two or more such executions have been served and satisfaction of the one having priority is completed without exhausting the amount of the salary or wages then due and payable that is subject to suggestion under this article the balance of such amount shall be paid in satisfaction, in the order of their priority, of junior suggestee executions against such salary or wages theretofore served.