## Facts

- A. Coker & Company (Coker) filed an admiralty in personam action against National Shipping Agency Corporation (National).
- Coker sought a maritime attachment under Supplemental Admiralty Rule B because National could not be found in the district for service, but National had property located there.
- The property identified for attachment was cash held in National’s bank account(s) within the district.
- The court granted Coker’s ex parte request and issued process of attachment against the funds in the account(s).
- After Coker’s attachment issued, E.N. Bisso & Son, Inc. (Bisso), another maritime creditor of National, moved to intervene and to assert its own Rule B claim against the same attached funds.
- Coker opposed intervention, arguing that the attached funds were limited and that Coker, as the first attaching creditor, had priority—making Bisso’s participation pointless.
- Bisso argued that the court should borrow the “inverse-order” rule sometimes used to rank certain maritime lien claims in Rule C in rem proceedings, which would favor the later claimant.

## Issues

1. Whether a later maritime creditor may intervene in an existing Rule B attachment action to assert a claim against the same attached fund.
2. If intervention is permitted, whether priority among competing Rule B attachors to a limited fund follows a first-in-time rule or an inverse-order rule associated with certain Rule C lien rankings.

## Decision

- The court permitted Bisso to intervene in the Rule B attachment proceeding.
- The court held that priority to the limited attached funds is determined by the order in which Rule B attachments are obtained, giving priority to the first attaching creditor (Coker).
- The court declined to use the inverse-order approach associated with some Rule C maritime lien contexts for competing Rule B attachments.

## Legal Principles

- Supplemental Rule B provides a prejudgment security device in an in personam admiralty action by allowing attachment of a defendant’s property found within the district when the defendant cannot be found there for service.
- A Rule B attachment does not operate like a Rule C in rem enforcement of maritime liens; it secures a personal claim by restraining the defendant’s property.
- When multiple Rule B creditors seek recovery from the same limited attached fund, priority is generally determined by the timing of the attachments (first in time, first in right).
- Priority doctrines tied to maritime lien enforcement in Rule C proceedings—including inverse-order concepts used in certain lien-ranking settings—do not control the ranking of Rule B attachors to a bank-account fund.

## Conclusion

The court allowed a later creditor to intervene in an existing Rule B attachment against a defendant’s bank-account funds, but ruled that competing Rule B attachors are paid in the order their attachments were obtained, and it would not import Rule C inverse-order lien-ranking rules into the Rule B context.


A. Coker & Company v. National Shipping Agency Corporation, 2000 AMC 489 (1999)