Massachusetts Statutes

Section 128. A defendant may dissolve an attachment by depositing with the attaching officer an amount of money equal at least to the amount of the attachment, which the officer shall hold in place of the property attached and which shall be subject to be disposed of in the same …

Section 129. A defendant whose individual property has been attached in an action against several defendants may dissolve such attachment, or any part thereof, in any of the modes provided in the nine preceding sections. But the bond to dissolve such attachment shall be so condit…

Section 129A. The officer shall not be liable for the release of personal property attached by him if he receives a certificate from the clerk of the court to which the writ is returnable, stating that a bond purporting to dissolve such attachment has been filed in the office of …

Section 13. If the supreme judicial or superior court finds that a party to an action or proceeding pending therein cannot, by reason of local prejudice or other cause, have an impartial trial in the county where the action or proceeding was commenced, it may, upon the applicatio…

Section 130. An attachment of property shall be dissolved by the appointment by any court of competent jurisdiction in the commonwealth of a receiver to take possession of such property if the complaint seeking the appointment of such receiver is filed in said court within four m…

Section 131. If an attachment has been dissolved in the manner provided in the preceding section, the proceedings for the appointment of a receiver shall not thereafter be dismissed and the receiver discharged until all the assets which have come into his hands as receiver have b…

Section 132. An attachment of real estate shall be dissolved by a release signed and acknowledged by the plaintiff or by his executor, administrator or attorney of record and recorded in the registry of deeds, or by a certificate from the clerk of court in which the action was pe…

Section 133. A bond which is required to be given by a party to a civil action or proceeding may be executed by any person other than the party to the action or proceeding, and may be approved in the same manner as if executed by such party, if it appears to the magistrate who ap…

Section 14. A civil action for the recovery of a forfeiture, except an action in which the commonwealth is plaintiff, or in which money is sought to be recovered for the commonwealth, shall be brought in the county where the offence was committed, unless the statute imposing the …

Section 15. If an error in venue is discovered at any stage of the proceedings of a civil action in the supreme judicial or superior court, the court may, upon motion of either party, order the action, with all papers relating thereto, to be removed to the proper county upon term…

Section 19. In a civil action if the name of the defendant is not known to the plaintiff, the defendant may be designated in the summons and complaint by a fictitious name. The use of a fictitious name shall not be grounds for dismissal of the complaint if sufficient service has …

Section 2. Except as provided in section twenty-one of chapter two hundred and eighteen, a transitory action in a district court shall be brought in a court in the judicial district where one of the parties lives or has his usual place of business or in a court, the judicial dist…

Section 20. Process in the supreme judicial and superior court shall be signed, by hand or by electronic means, and may be issued, by the clerk, shall bear teste of the first justice of the court who is not a party to the action, may be returnable to the same court in any other c…

Section 2A. Whenever cross actions between the same parties or two or more actions, including for the purposes hereof other court proceedings and actions transferred under section one hundred and two C of chapter two hundred and thirty-one, arising out of or connected with the sa…

Section 2B. Whenever cross actions between the same parties or two or more actions, including for the purposes hereof other court proceedings, arising out of or connected with the same accident, event or transaction are pending, one or more in the superior court and also one or m…

Section 2C. Whenever any action or proceeding is transferred to another court under any provision of section two A or section two B, such action or proceeding shall thereafter proceed in the court to which it is thus transferred as though originally entered there.

Section 3. Every action for rent, use and occupation or breach of covenant shall be considered a transitory action.

Section 31. In an action brought in the district court, if service is made at the last and usual place of abode, the officer making service shall forthwith mail first class a copy of the summons to such last and usual place of abode. The date of mailing and the address to which t…

Section 31A. Personal service of a writ or summons upon a defendant while he is exercising his right to vote shall be null and void.

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…