How do I recover wages garnished after my filing date?

Wages earned after the filing of your case are not assets of the bankruptcy in a Chapter 7 case and need not be disclosed in your petition and exempted. Contact the Sheriff's office who did the garnishment, usually it's the local sheriff's office (see your garnishment paperwork to verify). You should have your Notice of Bankruptcy Filing handy to fax that document to them. Typically, it takes a couple of weeks for the Sheriff's office to disburse the money to the creditors. Speak to them about each garnishment taken and they can tell you if they have disbursed the funds or if they are still holding the funds. Chances are funds taken on 02/24 have not been turned over yet, which means the Sheriff's office can send it back to your employer and the employer can forward the funds to you. This may take a couple of weeks, depending on when your Sheriff's office cuts the checks. Also, you can contact the attorney's office, which handled the paperwork for the creditor (see your original lawsuit summons) if the funds have already been forwarded to the creditor, ask the creditor's counsel to refund the money back. Creditor's attorney should have filed a request with the Sheriff's office to stop the garnishments. Then Sheriff's office has to stop the garnishment. Depending on your local sheriff's office, sometimes it takes a while for all the parties to do their part.

Counsel for the creditor should have been informed immediately upon the bankruptcy filing. The burden to avoid being in violation of the automatic stay does fall on the creditor once it is aware of the bankruptcy filing. Somehow you filed on January 10 and garnishment appears to have continued for another 6 weeks. You mention that you had to harass the creditor about the automatic stay. This raises the question of why notice was not immediately provided via fax to the sheriff and creditor (and its counsel) upon your bankruptcy filing. Because actions post notification are at least technical violations of the automatic stay.

All post-petition garnished wages should be returned to you immediately; continuing with a garnishment after filing could be contempt on the part of the creditor and its attorney.

First, to remove some confusion, Sheriff's are not involved with wage garnishments in the State of Maryland. Second, you are responsible to prepare a Notice of Automatic Stay and file it with the Clerk of the Court where the Garnishment was entered, mail a copy to the creditor, and may a copy to the employer. If the garnishment continues, you need to send a letter to the creditor's attorney placing the creditor on notice that they are in violation of the automatic stay. With that letter, the creditor's attorney will usually return the money to the debtor or to the debtor's employer. If you did in fact send a Notice of Automatic Stay to the Creditor's attorney at the time of filing, I would send a letter to the Creditor demanding the return of the wages. I would also CC the United States Trustee's office at the US Bankruptcy Court. Good luck.