A man involved in a dispute over his efforts to collect about $160,000 judgment by garnishing his debtor's retirement payments must wait until another lawyer—who formerly represented the debtor—has collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees he has long been owed but only sought to collect when his former client was garnished.

The contentious dispute has already spurred a libel suit against the creditor's lawyer over comments he made to the Daily Report concerning the creditor's lawyer's tactics.

In another twist, U.S. District Judge Clay Land of Georgia's Middle District has also certified a question to the state Supreme Court to determine whether the 2016 rewrite of the state's garnishment law means the bulk of more than $150,000 deposited in the court registry by the garnishee, Aflac, was improperly collected because the insurer is a “financial institution.”