Definition
A consignee is the person or entity to whom goods are consigned — that is, shipped, delivered, or otherwise transmitted — by a consignor. In commercial law, the consignee is the named recipient of a shipment and the party to whom a carrier is obligated to deliver the goods.
The term carries two distinct practical meanings depending on whether the consignee owns the goods:
1. Consignee as agent or factor: When the goods belong to the consignor, the consignee receives them for purposes of sale, storage, or other handling on the consignor's behalf. In this capacity the consignee acts as an agent and is bound to follow the consignor's instructions upon acceptance of the consignment.
2. Consignee as owner: When the goods belong to the consignee and were shipped at the consignee's direction, risk passes to the consignee at the moment of consignment. Carriers and intermediaries employed in transit become the consignee's agents from that point forward.
The consignee acquires a legal interest sufficient to bring claims against carriers for loss or damage, and may incur reasonable expenses in connection with the goods. Acceptance of a consignment carries obligations — most importantly, to act within the scope of any instructions received.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The person to whom a shipment is to be delivered; one to whom anything is consigned or entrusted.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The person to whom goods or other things are consigned; a factor — correlative to consignor. Used by merchants to express generally the person to whom merchandise is addressed by bill of lading or otherwise.
The common and legal usages are close but not identical. Ordinary usage treats consignee as simply the delivery recipient — passive and without obligation. Legal usage adds consequence: a consignee who accepts a consignment may become bound by instructions, assume risk, and incur liability. The distinction between consignee-as-owner and consignee-as-agent, invisible in common speech, is the operative legal question in most consignment disputes.
Common Confusion
CONSIGNEE vs. BAILEE: A consignee receiving goods for resale on the consignor's behalf functions similarly to a bailee, but the relationships are not identical. A bailee holds goods for return or specific purpose; a consignee-agent holds goods for sale and owes duties shaped by commercial agency principles, not purely by bailment law. Researchers conflating these frameworks may miss applicable duties and remedies.
CONSIGNEE vs. BUYER: In a straightforward sale, title passes to the buyer. In a true consignment, the consignee holds goods for sale on the owner's behalf and does not acquire title until sale occurs. This distinction is critical in insolvency contexts, where consignors may have priority claims against a consignee's estate that a seller ordinarily would not.
Why It Matters in Research
The word consignee appears across multiple distinct bodies of law — carrier and transportation law, commercial agency, sales, and secured transactions — and its meaning shifts with context. Researchers must identify which framework governs before applying doctrine.
In historical sources, consignee is heavily tied to maritime and overland shipping practice. The agency dimension was well-developed by the nineteenth century (Bouvier cites Livermore on Agency directly), but the modern UCC-era consignment framework reoriented the analysis around security interests and Article 9. Historical sources will not reflect this shift; a researcher using Bouvier or Burrill to understand consignee obligations in a post-UCC context must supplement accordingly.
Stoppage in transitu is a closely connected doctrine: the consignor's right to reclaim goods in transit before delivery to the consignee. Rapalje flags this directly. Researchers tracing consignee rights against carriers or consignor reclamation rights should pull these threads together — they appear in scattered places across the historical corpus.
In bills of lading research, the named consignee on the document may or may not be the ultimate owner of the goods, and transferability of the bill of lading affects who holds enforceable delivery rights. This distinction is underexplored in the older dictionaries.
Jurisdictional variation in consignee liability — particularly for storage costs and carrier charges — appeared early in American case law. Rapalje's citations to Massachusetts and Virginia authorities suggest regional divergence was recognized even in the nineteenth century.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are consistent on the core definition: a consignee is the person to whom goods are shipped or transmitted, typically for sale. Black's (both editions), Burrill, and Rapalje all state this simply and without material divergence.
Bouvier provides the most analytically developed entry, drawing the owner/agent distinction explicitly and noting that acceptance of a consignment creates an obligation to follow instructions. This functional distinction — which determines risk allocation, agency liability, and the identity of principals in carrier disputes — is underemphasized in the other sources.
Burrill adds useful cross-references to Kent's Commentaries (volumes 2 and 3), which remain valuable for understanding the commercial law backdrop against which nineteenth-century consignment practice developed.
None of the historical dictionaries address the secured-transactions dimension of consignment that became central under Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code. For research touching on creditor rights, consignee inventory, or consignor priority in bankruptcy, the historical sources are an incomplete starting point.
Jurisdictional Note
UCC Article 9 governs consignments meeting defined thresholds in all adopting U.S. jurisdictions, treating certain consignments as secured transactions and requiring filing to protect the consignor's interest against the consignee's creditors. Non-UCC jurisdictions and pre-Code research require attention to common law agency and factor statutes, which varied significantly by state.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Consignment — for the transactional framework, consignor rights, and UCC treatment.
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Bailment — for comparison with consignee-as-bailee analysis.
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Bills of Lading — for the consignee's rights and obligations in carrier relationships.