A Missouri federal court has ruled that the location of a guarantor’s bank account in a different state is no bar to a judgment creditor’s ability to levy that guarantor’s deposit accounts.
In Regions Equipment Finance Corp. v. Blue Tee Corp., the plaintiff filed an action for breach of contract after the defendant defaulted on an equipment lease. The plaintiff was located in Missouri, while the defendant was based in Illinois. The plaintiff obtained a writ of attachment against the defendant in Missouri and then levied on the defendant’s deposit accounts at Bank of America, a national bank.
The defendant sought to quash the writ based on the fact that his bank accounts were in Illinois, not Missouri. The plaintiff argued that the accounts were in a national bank and that physical location was not necessary to levy the accounts. The court found for the plaintiff, ruling that a national bank account is an intangible property and therefore does not have a physical location.
The court found it noteworthy that “Bank of America has made no claim that the defendant’s account is not located in Missouri and is thus not subject to attachment here. Instead, the bank has complied with the writ with the effect being that defendant cannot access the money in its account, whether at the Illinois branch where the account was opened, the New York branch where defendant is located, or any other Bank of America location.”
The court also noted that Missouri law was silent on whether an attachment in Missouri “will lie as to funds held in an account at a national bank that are available to the accountholder at one of the bank’s branches in Missouri.” Since the account in a national bank made it available in every state where Bank of America has a branch, the court predicted that the Missouri Supreme Court would find that attaching the account was consistent with Missouri law.
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