Julie Ann Kendle v. Matthew Davis Kendle, Et Al.

This appeal arises from an Order for Conditional Judgment to enforce a routine garnishment of an obligor’s wages. The dispositive issue is whether an employer of an obligor has an affirmative duty to determine whether the aggregate amount of wages to be garnished from an obligor’s multiple employers exceeds the aggregate disposable earnings limits provided in Tenn. Code Ann. § 26-2-106. An employer of the obligor, Blue Shield EMS (“Blue Shield”), was served with a garnishment while a pre-existing wage assignment of the obligor’s wages from another employer was still in effect. Although none of the obligor’s wages from Blue Shield had been previously garnished, Blue Shield filed an answer to the garnishment stating, “We cannot process any deductions from [the obligor’s] paycheck at this time due to his total income already being garnished greater than 25%.” Upon motion of the obligor’s former wife for a conditional judgment, the trial court found that “Blue Shield did not have a valid legal reason for failing to withhold twenty-five percent (25%) of the employee’s net wages” and ordered Blue Shield to pay into the court the wages that should have been garnished and to honor the garnishment going forward until the judgment was satisfied. Having determined that an employer has no duty to consider the aggregate effect of garnishments served on other employers when answering a garnishment, we affirm.