Ex Parte Attachment, and Priority, Reinstated to First in Time Creditor

In Estate of Summers v. Nisbet, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court reinforced the first in time, first in right nature of attachment and trustee process under Maine law.  Attachment and trustee process are powerful enforcement tools with which a plaintiff can place a lien on a defendant’s real or personal property while the case is pending, so that the defendant cannot transfer or abscond with property while being sued.
 
After a tragic fire at an apartment building in Portland, Maine that resulted in five deaths, the probate estate of Steven Summers, one of the victims, obtained a December 2014 ex parte attachment against the property of the building owner.  The probate estates of several other victims subsequently obtained attachments in February 2015 and asked the Superior Court to have the Summers ex parte attachment dissolved, asserting that the Summers estate had failed to demonstrate the “exigent circumstances” necessary for the grant of an attachment without hearing.
 
The Superior Court granted that motion, and dissolved the Summers estate’s original ex parte attachment and reinstated it as of February 2015.  As a consequence of the Court’s ruling, all five of the victims’ probate estates were left with attachments that were deemed to have been granted simultaneously.

The Summers estate appealed.  The Law Court vacated the trial court’s dissolution of the Summer ex parte attachment, ruling that the trial court had erred because no one had asserted or established that the Summers estate had failed to make the basic showing required for an attachment, and ordered the Summers attachment reinstated as of the date it was ordered, in first place.  In doing so the Court confirmed that under Maine attachment law, first in time is first in right, and that creditors in Maine must act expeditiously to protect their rights.