APPOINTEE

6 definitions found across Law Mind sources

APPOINTEEAuthored
The Law Mind • 934 words
Definition
A person who has been designated, selected, or appointed for a particular purpose. The term carries two distinct but related meanings in legal usage: (1) General sense: Any person designated to fill an office, trust, or position by someone with authority to make that designation — a public official appointed to a commission, a trustee selected by a court, or an agent named to carry out a specific function. (2) Powers of appointment sense: The person in whose favor a power of appointment is exercised — that is, the individual designated by the holder of a power (the "donee" or "appointor") to receive property or benefit under that power. In this sense, the appointee is the recipient of the appointment, not the person doing the appointing.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A person who is appointed. Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A person appointed; also specifically, a person in whose favor a power of appointment is executed. The common and legal meanings substantially overlap, but ordinary usage collapses an important distinction. In everyday language, "appointee" simply means someone who has been given a job or position. In law — particularly in trust and property law — "appointee" refers specifically to the beneficiary of a power of appointment, a technically precise role distinct from the person exercising the power. A researcher encountering "appointee" in a trust instrument or equity proceeding should not assume the general sense applies.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES Appointee (general): Any person designated to fill an office or carry out a trust. The term appears in public law contexts (government appointments), private law contexts (trustees, agents), and administrative law. Appointee under a power: The specific beneficiary designated when a donee exercises a power of appointment. This is the dominant technical usage in property and trust law. The appointee may be a member of a defined class (permissible appointees) specified in the original instrument creating the power, or may be freely chosen depending on whether the power is general or special.
Why It Matters in Research
The two senses of "appointee" — general designee versus beneficiary of a power of appointment — can produce serious misreadings if conflated. In historical documents, particularly equity opinions and trust instruments from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, "appointee" almost always signals the power-of-appointment meaning. Modern administrative and constitutional law uses the term almost exclusively in the general sense. Knowing which era and which field of law you are reading is essential to parsing the term correctly. In corpus research, the term appears across a wide range of legal domains: constitutional law (executive appointments), administrative law (agency staffing), trust and estates (powers of appointment), and equity (court-appointed officers). These contexts do not share a common usage, so broad-term searching will surface false positives across fields. Filtering by surrounding terms — "power," "donee," "appointor," "permissible appointees" — will help isolate the property law sense. Terms like "commission," "office," "designated," or "confirmed" tend to accompany the general administrative sense. Historical sources frequently define "appointee" in the same breath as "appointment" and "appointor," so the concepts are tightly clustered in older dictionaries. Researchers working in equity or trust law should be prepared to follow that cluster across multiple related entries in historical dictionaries, as the definitions are often mutually dependent.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries agree on both senses of the term with unusual consistency. Black's (1st and 2nd editions), Bouvier's, and Rapalje & Lawrence all define "appointee" first as a person appointed or selected for a particular purpose, then specify the power-of-appointment sense as the technically precise legal meaning. Webster's 1913 independently confirms both senses and cites Kent and Wharton for the powers-of-appointment usage, signaling that the technical sense was well established in nineteenth-century legal writing. Bouvier's folds the definition into its broader entry on "appointment," which is characteristic of Bouvier's organizational style and reflects how closely the concepts were understood to be linked. Rapalje & Lawrence is slightly more explicit in separating the two senses into numbered sub-definitions, which is useful for corpus researchers but does not represent a substantive disagreement with the other sources. What the historical dictionaries do not address is how the general sense of "appointee" would expand in the twentieth century with the growth of administrative agencies and executive appointment processes. The constitutional and administrative law dimensions of the term are entirely absent from these sources, meaning researchers working in modern public law will find the historical dictionaries of limited navigational value for that context.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Powers of Appointment; Public Officers and Appointments
Related Terms
Appointor — the person exercising a power of appointment; the counterpart to the appointee in the power-of-appointment context. Donee of a power — the holder of a power of appointment; sometimes used interchangeably with "appointor" in older sources. Power of appointment — the authority granted to a person to designate who will receive property or benefit under a trust or instrument. Permissible appointees — the class of persons eligible to receive an appointment under a special or limited power. Appointment — the act of designating a person to officetrustor benefit; the parent concept. Nominee — a closely related term in the general sense; a person named or proposed for a positionthough without necessarily implying finalized selection. Officer — related in the public law context when the appointee fills a formal governmental role. Trustee — may be an appointee in the general sense when designated by a court or instrument to administer a trust.
APPOINTEEmain
Black's Law Dictionary • 1891
A person who is appoint- to receive the benefit of the power. appointee under a power is the person who is
APPOINTEEmain
Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928
A person who is ap pointed or selected for a particular purpose; as, the appointee under a power is the per- son who is to receive the benefit of the power. ΑΡΡΟΙΝΤΜΕNT. The designation of 1 person, by the person or persons having authority therefor, to discharge the duties of some office or trust. The making out a commission is conclu- sive evidence of an appointment to an office for holding which a commission is required; 1 Cra. 187; 10 Pet. 348. For discussion of constitutional and statutory limitations of executive and legislative functions in respect to appointments to office, see 30 Amer. & Eng. Corp. Cas. 321, note. The governor cannot make a valid ap- pointment to an office which at the time is rightfully held by an incumbent whose term has not expired; 124 Ind. 515. As distinguished from an election, it seems that an appointment is generally made by one person, or a limited number acting with delegated powers, while an election is made by all of a class. The word is sometimes used in a sense quite akin to this, and apparently derived from it as denoting the right or privilege conferred by an appointment: thus, the act of authorizing a man to print the laws of the United States by authority, and the right thereby conveyed, are considered such an appoint- ment, but the right is not an office; 17 S. & R. 20, 283. And see 8 id. 157; Cooper, Justin. 599, 604, In Chancery Practice. The exercise of a right to designate the person or persons who are to take the use of real estate. 2 Washb. R. P. 302. By whom to be made. It must be made by the person authorized; 2 Bouv. Inst. $1922; who may be any person competent to dispose of an estate of his own in the same manner; 4 Kent 324; including a married woman; 1 Sugd. Pow. 182; 3 C. B. 578; 5 id. 741; 8 Johns. Ch. 528; 2 Dall. 201; 8 How. 27; even though her husband be the appointee; 21 Pa. 72; or an infant, if the power be simply collateral; 2 Washb. R. P. 5th ed. *317. And see Sugd. Pow. 8th ed. 177, 910. Where two or more are named as donees, all must in general join; 2 Washb. R. P. 5th ed. *322; 14 Johns. 558; but where given to several who act in a trust capacity, as a class, it may be by the sur- vivors; 10 Pet. 564; 13 Metc. Mass. 220; Story. Eq. Jur. § 1062, n. When such a right is devolved upon two executors and two others are named as successors in case of their death, no others can execute the trust so long as any one of the four is living and has not declined the trust, and an admin- istrator c. t. a. will be liable to suit by the succeeding trustee for trust property with which he intermeddles; 147 U. S. 557. How to be made. A very precise compli- ance with the directions of the donor is necessary; 2 Ves. Ch. 231; 1 P. Will. 740; 8 East 410, 430; 1 Jac. & W. Ch. 93;6 Mann. & G. 386; 8 How. 30; having regard to the intention, especially in substantial matters; Tudor, Lead. Cas. 306; 2 Washb. R. P. 5th ed. *318; Ambl. Ch. 555; 8 Ves. Ch. 431. It may be a partial execution of the power only, and yet be valid; 4 Cruise, Dig. 205; or, if excessive, may be good to the extent of the power; 2 Ves. Sen. 640 : 8 Dru. & W.339. It must come within the spirit of the power; thus, if the appoint- ment is to be to and amongst several, a fair allotment must be made to each; 4 Ves. Ch. 771; 2 Vern. Ch. 518; otherwise, where it is made to such as the donee may select; 5 Ves. Ch. 857. The effect of an appointment is to vest the estate in the appointee, as if conveyed by the original donor; 2 Washb. R. P. 5th ed. *320; 2 Crabb. R. P. 726, 741; 2 Sugd. Pow. 22; 11 Johns. 169. See POWER. Con- sult 2 Washb. R. P. 5th ed. *298, 337; Tudor, Lead. Cás.; Chance, Pow.; 4 Greenl. Cruise, Dig. In Pennsylvania where the appointer, after an estate for life, is a lineal descend- ant of the donor, there is no collateral in- heritance tax; 2 Chest. Co. R. 246.
APPOINTEEmain
Rapalje & Lawrence • 1888
- (1) A person appointed for a particular purpose, or to hold a particular office or trust. (2) A person in whose favor a power of appointment is executed. APPOINTING POWER, (exercise of, what is). 8 Am. Rep. 24. (in constitution of Ohio). 21 Ohio St. 14.
APPOINTEEn.
Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913
A person appointed. The commission authorizes them to make appointments, and pay the appointees. Circular of Mass. Representatives (1768). A person in whose favor a power of appointment is executed. Kent. Wharton.
appointeenoun
Wiktionary (English) • 2026
Wiktionary contributorsCC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.
a person who is appointed

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