Chapter 223

Section 34. If the defendant is out of the commonwealth, or if his residence is not known to the officer, and no personal service is made on him or on his agent appointed under section five of chapter two hundred and twenty-seven, he shall, in addition to the service herein presc…

Section 35. When process is served by an officer by leaving copies of the summons, subpoena, or summons and complaint at the last and usual place of abode of any person, the officer serving the same shall state in his return the place as definitely as is practicable, giving, if p…

Section 37. In an action against a county, city, town, parish or religious society, or against the proprietors of wharves, general fields or real estate lying in common, who are incorporated, service shall be made upon the treasurer thereof, or if no treasurer is found, upon one …

Section 38. In an action against a foreign corporation, except an insurance company, which has a usual place of business in the commonwealth, or with or without such usual place of business, is engaged in or soliciting business in the commonwealth, permanently or temporarily, ser…

Section 39. In an action against a foreign insurance company transacting business in this commonwealth, service may be made upon an agent of the company, licensed as such in the commonwealth, who, having authority to issue policies and bind risks for the company, has issued the p…

Section 39A. In an action against insurance companies severally liable upon a policy of insurance issued under section one hundred and two A, one hundred and eleven A or one hundred and seventeen A of chapter one hundred and seventy-five, or jointly and severally liable upon a po…

Section 39B. In an action against the subscribers of a reciprocal or inter-insurance exchange defined in section ninety-four A of chapter one hundred and seventy-five and authorized to transact business in the commonwealth under said chapter, service may be made upon the attorney…

Section 4. An action brought pursuant to chapter two hundred and forty-seven shall be brought in the county where the goods or beasts are detained.

Section 40. In an action against a voluntary association or trust described in section one of chapter one hundred and eighty-two, engaged in business in the commonwealth, service may be made upon any trustee or like officer thereof.

Section 42. All real and personal property liable to be taken on execution, except such personal property as, from its nature or situation, has been considered as exempt according to the principles of the common law as adopted and practiced in the commonwealth, or which is specif…

Section 42A. In an action or suit for an amount which is liquidated or ascertainable by calculation, no attachment by trustee process or otherwise shall be made for a larger sum than the amount of the claim and such additional amount as is reasonably necessary to include interest…

Section 43. Railroad cars and engines and street railway cars, in use and making regular passages on railroads or railways, and steamboats so in use upon water routes, shall not be attached upon mesne process unless the officer who makes the attachment has first demanded of the o…

Section 44. No ship or vessel shall be attached in a civil action unless the plaintiff or a person on his behalf makes affidavit and proves to the satisfaction of a justice of a court that he has a good claim and reasonable expectation of recovering an amount, exclusive of all co…

Section 44A. Motor vehicles registered under the law of this commonwealth and not exempt from execution under clause Sixteenth of section thirty-four of chapter two hundred and thirty-five shall not be attached by writ of attachment in a civil action based upon a contract unless …

Section 45. The press, type, stands, cases, paper and other personal property used in printing and publishing newspapers shall not, within forty-eight hours previous to the issue of any edition of a newspaper, be attached upon mesne process unless the officer who makes the attach…

Section 45A. If there is reasonable doubt as to the ownership of personal property or as to its liability to be attached on mesne process, before or after the attachment has been made, the officer may require sufficient security from the plaintiff to indemnify him for attaching o…

Section 47. Personal property which has been attached or taken on execution by a constable may be further attached or taken on execution by a deputy sheriff or other competent officer, upon any writ of attachment or execution which such constable is not qualified to serve; and th…

Section 48. An officer directed to make an attachment of personal property may, if the writ bears an endorsement signed by a justice, associate justice or special justice of the court in which the action is commenced and stating that, in his opinion, the appointment of a keeper i…

Section 49. Personal property which has been attached may, subject to the preceding section, be kept on the premises where it is found, unless the owner or occupant of the premises in writing requests the officer to remove his keeper therefrom; and if the defendant in writing req…

Section 5. A civil action in which the commonwealth is plaintiff or in which money due to the commonwealth is sought to be recovered may be brought in the county where the defendant lives or has his usual place of business, or in Suffolk county.

Section 50. If an attachment is made of articles of personal property which, by reason of their bulk or for other cause, cannot be immediately removed, a certified copy of the writ of attachment together with a certified copy of the officer's endorsement on the original writ of a…

Section 52. If personal property has been sold or disposed of by consent of the parties, or after an appraisal as hereinafter provided, the proceeds, while remaining in the hands of the officer, shall be liable to be further attached by him as the property of the original defenda…

Section 53. Property which has been replevied from an officer who has attached it shall be considered as remaining in his custody and control so as to be liable to further successive attachments, as if it had remained in his possession.

Section 54. If there is judgment for a return of the property so replevied, the plaintiff in replevin and his sureties shall be liable for the whole of the property or the value thereof, although the attachment for which it is finally held was made after the property was replevie…

Section 55. If an officer dies or is removed from office while an attachment which he has made remains in force, the attached property, whether replevied or remaining in possession of the officer or of his executor or administrator, may be further attached by any other officer so…

Section 56. The officer who makes such later attachment shall not take the property itself, but he shall make proof of service of the writ of attachment to the court in writing, stating by whom the property was previously attached and shall leave a certified copy of the writ of a…

Section 57. Property which has been replevied from an attaching officer shall not be further attached as the property of the original defendant in any manner other than is provided in the four preceding sections and in section forty-seven, so long as it is held by the plaintiff i…

Section 58. Property which has been attached by an officer, whether in his custody at his death or taken from him by replevin or otherwise, and also all claims for damages to property so taken from him, shall remain subject to the attachment as if the officer had lived, and shall…

Section 59. Upon judgment for the plaintiff in a civil action, property which has been attached in connection with said action shall remain subject to attachment for thirty days after the date which appears on the execution issued upon such judgment pursuant to chapter two hundre…

Section 6. A local or transitory action by a county shall be brought in the county where the defendant lives or in a county adjoining the plaintiff county. If the defendant lives in the plaintiff county, it shall be brought in an adjoining county. Such action against a county sha…

Section 62. In attaching land, or a right or interest therein, the officer need not enter upon the land or be within view of it. In attaching leasehold estates, the officer shall state in his return in general terms the leasehold property attached. Every writ on which such an att…

Section 63. No attachment of land or of any leasehold estate shall be valid against a subsequent attaching creditor, or against a subsequent purchaser in good faith and for value, unless the officer deposits a certified copy of the writ of attachment and so much of his return the…

Section 64. The officer who makes such attachment shall deposit such copy in the registry of deeds.

Section 65. The register of deeds shall note on such copy the day, hour and minute of its receipt, and shall record it in his office. He shall also enter in the indexes provided for in chapter thirty-six the name or names of each defendant whose land is attached as appears in sai…

Section 66. If the copy of the writ is deposited, as aforesaid, within three days after the day when the attachment was made the attachment shall take effect from the time it was made, otherwise, from the time when the copy is so deposited; but attachments of land, and of leaseho…

Section 67. If an attachment on mesne process is made of land, or of a right or interest therein, which has been fraudulently conveyed by the debtor to a third person, or which has been purchased by the debtor, or the purchase money of which has been directly or indirectly paid b…

Section 68. The register in such case, in addition to the names of the parties to the action which he is required to enter as provided in section sixty-five, shall also enter in his docket of attachments the names of the persons in whom the record or legal title stands, as return…

Section 69. Registers of deeds shall perform the same duties relative to the filing and entering of copies of writs and other papers in actions commenced in the courts of the United States which affect the title to land by attachment or otherwise as are required relative to the f…

Section 7. An action against a town or person to recover for injury or damage received by reason of a defect, want of repair or of an insufficient railing in or upon a public way shall be brought in the county where said town is situated or in the county where the plaintiff lives…

Section 70. An attachment of land which is subject to a mortgage or other encumbrance shall, if the mortgage is redeemed or the encumbrance is removed before the levy of the execution, hold the land discharged of the mortgage or encumbrance, and execution may be levied in the sam…

Section 71. Shares of stock shall not be attached in a civil action in which only money damages are sought.

Section 72. If goods are delivered to a carrier or other bailee by the owner or by a person whose act in conveying title to a purchaser in good faith for value would bind the owner and a negotiable document of title is issued for them, they cannot thereafter, while in the possess…

Section 73. Except as provided in the preceding section, property in the possession of a carrier or warehouseman may be attached by trustee process or otherwise; but if the bill of lading or receipt, though non-negotiable, has been transferred, and the carrier or warehouseman not…

Section 74. Personal property of a debtor which is subject to a mortgage, pledge or lien, and of which he has the right of redemption, or personal property sold under a contract of conditional sale reserving title in the vendor, may be attached and held as if it were unencumbered…

Section 75. Within a reasonable time after such property has been attached, or, in the case of property subject to a recorded mortgage or covered by a financing statement filed pursuant to the provisions of chapter one hundred and six, within a reasonable time after written notic…

Section 76. If the mortgagee, pledgee, lienor or conditional vendor, or his assigns, demands and receives more than the amount due to him, he shall be liable to the attaching creditor for the excess, with interest thereon at the rate of twelve per cent a year.