When a garnishee is a financial institution and fails or refuses to file a garnishee answer by the fifteenth day after the date of service of the summons of garnishment, such garnishee shall automatically be in default. The default may be opened as a matter of right by the filing of a garnishee answer within 15 days of the day of default and payment of costs. If the case is still in default after the expiration of the period of 15 days, judgment by default may be entered at any time thereafter against such garnishee for the amount remaining due on the judgment obtained against the defendant as shown in the plaintiffs affidavit of garnishment.
O.C.G.A. § 18-4-22
Financial institution as garnishee; failure to answer
Applied in 6 court decisions — leading case MacKey v. Lanier Collection Agency & Service, Inc. (1988)
Most recently applied in Boudreaux v. Sheffield (In re Sheffield) (March 2014)
Code 1981, § 18-4-22, enacted by Ga
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Current official text: Official Code of Georgia Annotated (LexisNexis). Digitized from the Internet Archive scan of the OCGA. Reproduced from public-domain Georgia statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.