Union Colony Bank v. United Bank of Greeley National Ass’n (1992)
Citation: 832 P.2d 1112 · Court: Colorado Court of Appeals · Decided: May 14, 1992 · Opinion: Smith, J.; Tursi, J., dissenting.
Source note (2026-10-18):
- Links on this page to
https://static.case.law/p2d/832/cases/1112-01.jsonare an (unofficial Caselaw Access Project copy, retrieved before 2026-10-18; host disallows automated access); no official or otherwise permitted full-text copy was located on 2026-10-18.
Facts
Two unsecured judgment creditors of Stanley Davis competed for his 6.16% interest in Wilshire Land Company, a partnership. United Bank obtained judgment first (April 12, 1990), served writs of garnishment on the partnership, and on May 30 moved for a charging order, which the court later entered nunc pro tunc to April 30. Union Colony obtained judgment on May 22, 1990 and, with the debtor’s waiver of the 15-day stay, a charging order the same day. The trial court ordered the two creditors to share future distributions pro rata.
Holding
Reversed. A charging order under the Uniform Partnership Act (then C.R.S. § 7-60-128) creates a lien on the debtor partner’s distributive share that attaches when the order is served on the partnership, and it has priority “for full satisfaction of the creditor’s judgment” over any later-served charging order, regardless of the order in which the judgments were entered or the creditors’ earlier collection efforts. Pro rata sharing was error.
Reasoning
- The charging order evolved as a substitute for the disruptive common-law practice of seizing and selling partnership property to reach a partner’s interest; it “operates, in effect, as a substitute for execution.”
- Priority should therefore parallel execution on personal property: in Colorado “a writ of execution constitutes a lien upon the property which attaches when the writ is delivered to the sheriff,” with priority over later liens (citing Joslin v. Spangler, 13 Colo. 491 (1889); Robinson v. Wright, 90 Colo. 417 (1932)); the court followed Krauth v. First Continental Dev-Con, 351 So. 2d 1106 (Fla. App. 1977).
- The dissent would have upheld the trial court’s equitable apportionment given the debtor’s apparent collusion with Union Colony.
Practical impact
- Buyers of partnership interests at charging-order foreclosures (now C.R.S. § 7-64-504(2)) should identify competing effective and enforceable orders; mere earlier service of an ineffective order is not sufficient under the later McClure decision.
- Creditors: service matters, but foreign-order domestication/enforceability must be established before applying a first-in-time rule.
- The opinion’s statement of the execution-lien rule for personal property (attachment on delivery of the writ) is a useful Colorado anchor for chattel execution priorities.
Good-law status
needs_verification. Full majority and Tursi dissent read October 17, 2026 at Justia and re-read October 18, 2026 from the Caselaw Access Project.
Distinct later primary treatment: JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. v. McClure, 2017 CO 22, full opinion, ¶¶ 16, 34–44, affirmatively cites this decision but compares effective and enforceable LLC charging orders. The Arizona orders compelling Colorado LLC action were ineffective against the LLCs until domesticated; their earlier service did not defeat intervening effective Colorado orders. This is a significant qualification to an unbounded service-priority summary, not a finding that Union Colony was overruled. Current § 7-64-504 was read in the 2026 official title 7. Comprehensive treatment remains unverified.
Bounded final review (2026-10-18)
Majority and dissent re-read 2026-10-18 from the Caselaw Access Project (unofficial, verbatim); law.justia.com refused automated access that day. McClure re-read in full from the Colorado Judicial Branch; it cites this case at 832 P.2d at 1115 for attachment of the charging-order lien on service. The execution-writ rule it relies on is also statutory: a writ binds personalty from delivery to the sheriff (C.R.S. § 13-52-111). Comprehensive later treatment remains needs_verification. The Caselaw Access Project copy was saved before the site’s robots.txt (which disallows all automated access) came to this review’s attention; it is kept as evidence only and no further automated requests were made to static.case.law.
Applies in →
colorado · equity-interests-stock-llc-charging-orders · personal-property-execution-sales-by-state
Legal information, not legal advice. Historical holding and limited later treatment only; verify current law and case history before relying on this page.