When a Lawsuit Threatens Your Business Operations

Most business lawsuits are a slow drain on time and money. A few are not. When a lawsuit threatens your business operations, the plaintiff is not waiting for a verdict. It is asking a judge, sometimes within days of filing, to freeze your operating account, take equipment off your floor, or record a notice that stops a closing. Florida allows that relief, but only on narrow statutory grounds, usually only with a bond, and always subject to a motion that puts the burden back on the plaintiff.

What Does It Mean When a Lawsuit Threatens Your Business Operations?

It means the other side has asked for prejudgment relief: a court order reaching your cash, your property, or your conduct before anyone has proven anything. Florida’s writs of garnishment and replevin, a recorded lis pendens, and a temporary injunction all work this way, and each has its own line of attack.

On the writs, the plaintiff carries the burden the moment you move to dissolve, so the first two weeks are about procedure rather than the merits of the underlying claim.

Four categories of relief interrupt operations:

• Cash: a prejudgment writ of garnishment served on your bank.
• Goods: a writ of replevin, repossession, or attachment reaching equipment, inventory, or vehicles.
• Real estate: a recorded notice of lis pendens.
• Conduct: a temporary injunction, or in rare cases a court-appointed receiver.

Garnishment and replevin carry short statutory deadlines to fight back. A lis pendens and an injunction are attacked by motion with no fixed clock.

Can a Plaintiff Freeze Your Bank Accounts Before Winning?

Not by default, and not on the plaintiff’s say-so. A writ of garnishment before judgment is issued by the court, or by the clerk on the court’s order, on a verified motion or affidavit alleging specific facts. Unless the plaintiff has already had a writ of attachment issued, it must first post a bond in at least double the amount of the debt demanded. See Fla. Stat. s. 77.031.

That bond is not a formality. It is conditioned to pay the costs, damages, and attorney’s fees you sustain because the plaintiff improperly sued out the writ. The writ itself must also notify you of your right to an immediate dissolution hearing.

A plaintiff suing only for money cannot skip that process by asking for an injunction instead. In an action at law for money damages, Florida courts recognize no judicial authority for any restraint on the use of a defendant’s unrestricted assets before judgment. See Briceno v. Bryden Investments, Ltd., 973 So. 2d 614 (Fla. 3d DCA 2008). Property identified as the res of an alleged constructive trust is the exception, and even then the plaintiff must show a probable danger of dissipation and a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits.

Your bank is a garnishee rather than a defendant, and its garnishment response obligations run on a separate track from your defense. That is why account holders often learn about a freeze from a declined transaction rather than the court file.

Can Someone Take Your Equipment or Inventory Before Trial?

Yes, though most replevin cases begin with a noticed show-cause hearing rather than an immediate seizure. The order that interrupts operations is a prejudgment writ, which issues only on the signed order of a circuit or county judge. The court must find that you are engaging in or about to engage in conduct that may place the property in danger of destruction, concealment, waste, removal from the state, removal from the court’s jurisdiction, or transfer to an innocent purchaser during the pendency of the action, or that you failed to make payment as agreed. See Fla. Stat. s. 78.068. The plaintiff posts bond in twice the value of the goods or twice the balance remaining due and owing, whichever is lesser as determined by the court.

Once a prejudgment writ is served, you have two exits and the statute makes you choose one:

1. Post a bond and get the goods back. Within 5 days after service of the writ, post a bond of one and one-quarter the amount due and owing on the agreement and recover possession.
2. Move to dissolve. Within 10 days after service, a contradictory motion forces the plaintiff to prove the grounds on which the writ issued, and the court must set an immediate hearing. That motion is expressly in lieu of the bond route.

If the business cannot run without the equipment, the bond buys continuity. If it can absorb the loss briefly, the motion attacks the writ itself and preserves a claim against the plaintiff’s bond.

Can a Lawsuit Stop You From Selling or Refinancing Property?

A recorded notice of lis pendens can, and it is the cheapest tool a plaintiff has, because the statute requires no bond to record one. The notice clouds title, and a pending sale or refinance usually stalls until it is discharged.

Florida limits the tool in two ways under Fla. Stat. s. 48.23:

• It expires. A notice is not effectual for any purpose beyond 1 year from commencement of the action unless the pending pleading discloses that the relief sought is founded on a duly recorded instrument or on a lien claimed under part I of chapter 713, or the court extends the expiration on reasonable notice and for good cause, on such terms as justice requires.
• The court controls it. Where the pending pleading does not show the action is founded on such an instrument or lien, or the action no longer affects the property, “the court shall control and discharge the recorded notice of lis pendens as the court would grant and dissolve injunctions.”

That last clause is the leverage: it places the notice under the court’s injunction powers and gives you a motion to discharge. Our discussion of the do’s and don’ts of lis pendens covers the recording mechanics, and a clouded title often outlives the real estate litigation that produced it, becoming a title defect problem at the next closing.

How Do You Get a Prejudgment Writ Dissolved?

By making the plaintiff prove what it alleged. Under Fla. Stat. s. 77.07, a writ of garnishment is dissolved on your motion unless the plaintiff proves the grounds on which the writ was issued and, for a prejudgment writ, a reasonable probability that final judgment will be rendered in its favor.

Three timing rules decide most of these fights, and each runs from a different event:

• 20 days, but not from the writ. The garnishment clock starts on the date shown in the certificate of service of the plaintiff’s statutory notice, which is served within 5 days after the garnishee answers or the answer period expires. Miss it and the statute directs the court to strike your motion as an unauthorized nullity, leaving you in a default posture.
• 10 days from service for replevin. The contradictory motion is due within 10 days after service of the writ, and the 1.25 bond option expires 5 days after service.
• Six months from filing. If the plaintiff neither dismisses nor moves for final judgment within 6 months after filing the writ of garnishment, the writ automatically dissolves and the garnishee is discharged from further liability under it. The plaintiff can extend it another 6 months by serving a notice of extension on both the garnishee and the defendant and filing a certification of that service.

Because these clocks start on different events, docketing them correctly is the first defensive act in any case involving a prejudgment writ.

What Should a Business Do First?

Triage the operational damage before arguing the merits:

• Identify every account, asset, and parcel actually reached, and confirm what remains to fund payroll.
• Tell your lender before it finds out. A frozen account or a recorded lis pendens can trip a covenant, and an early call is a different conversation than a late one. See our discussion of aggressive lender enforcement actions.
• Docket every deadline against its own trigger date rather than the date of service.
• Preserve proof of the harm. Lost sales, expedited freight, idle crews, and a blown closing are the damages a wrongful writ bond is written to cover.
• Separate the writ fight from the underlying claim, whether a breach of contract case or a collection suit. Winning dissolution does not resolve the case, and losing it does not decide it.

Relief that restricts how you operate rather than seizing property follows different standards. Start with how to defend against court orders and injunctions and what a temporary injunction requires. If a receiver is proposed, the fight is over control of the business itself, so a commercial property receivership request deserves the same urgency as a writ.

Talk to a Florida Lawsuit Defense Attorney

Jimerson Birr represents Florida businesses defending commercial claims, including prejudgment writs, injunctions, and receivership requests that reach operations before judgment. Our lawsuit defense and business litigation attorneys work the dissolution motion and the underlying claim on parallel tracks, with the goal of limiting disruption while the case is litigated. More commercial defense coverage is collected in our Professional Services Industry Legal Blog.