I received a fax this afternoon from a woman in Florida (I'm in South Carolina). In this fax was an exparte order to freeze assets of an ex-husband, issued by a Florida family law court. Also included in the fax was a writ of body attachment for the ex-husband.

I no sooner finished reading the documents when my phone rang. The ex-wife (the one that sent the fax) had somehow obtained my direct line! She wanted me to verify that her ex-husband had an account at my bank and if so, to follow the Florida court order and freeze assets.

I explained to her that even if said accounts existed, I certainly couldn't tell her about them. She didn't seem to understand that as I had to explain it to her about a dozen times.

Here's the thing: The body attachment has an official clerk of court file stamp and is notarized as a certified copy. The order to freeze assets has absolutelty no indicia of being a an official court document. I could literally type up the same order in about 5 minutes and it would have the same legal effect.

After referring the ex-wife to my bank's legal counsel, I did a little research. I found the actual docket entry for the case and it's noted in the docket that "the court finds entry of an immediate ex parte order is justified."

So, the docket says that entry of the order is justified, but the document I have has no indication that it's official.

My take on this is that we're under no obligation to do anything absent an official court order.

The easy answer will be to refer me to my bank's legal counsel. That's not me, but I am a licensed attorney in 2 states. I just don't fill that role at my bank.

I'm just curious to see what other people have to say about this. Thanks for reading!

IMO, you are correct to leave it to the bank's legal counsel.

I'm not an attorney either, but I would think that she would have to file in South Carolina as the Florida Court has no jurisdiction over you, unless there is some reciprocal agreement between the States.

I am not afraid to give you an opinion, even though I am not attorney. As I understand it from past dealings of similar issues with my bank's attorney, court orders from one state are not effective in another state, unless the order is also "filed" and issued by a court having jursidiction in the county or district where your bank is located. The woman's attorney would have to hire an attorney who is licensed to practice in your state to file the necessary motions in the local court and get a similar order issued from there. Otherwise, you have no obligation to comply.

That's just my humble understanding of the law.

Just to state the obvious in this case -- even if the Florida court did have some "long arm" jurisdiction, court orders have to be served to be effective, and getting a fax from the complainant is not only not effective service, it's highly suspect.

I would go so far as to add a message to the file to warn other officers to be cautious since a suspect fax was supposedly "served."