Definition
A receuptor is a person who receives possession of goods that a sheriff has seized under a writ of garnishment, in exchange for giving the sheriff a bond guaranteeing that the property will be produced when lawfully demanded or when execution issues. The receuptor takes custody of the seized goods as a kind of surety-custodian, relieving the sheriff of the burden of holding the property while ensuring it remains available to satisfy the underlying legal process.
The term appears in the law of certain American states and is closely tied to the mechanics of garnishment procedure. The receuptor's obligation runs to the sheriff and, through the bond, to the court and the creditor whose process initiated the seizure.
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Common Language
This is pure legal jargon with no counterpart in ordinary English usage. The term has no entry in general dictionaries and would be meaningless to a non-specialist reader. Omitted accordingly.
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Common Confusion
Receuptor is sometimes loosely conflated with a general bailee or a replevin surety, but the roles are distinct. A bailee receives goods by voluntary agreement of the owner; a receuptor receives goods seized without the owner's consent, under compulsion of legal process. The receuptor's obligation is statutory and bond-based, not contractual in the ordinary sense. The term should also be distinguished from a garnishee, who is the third party in whose hands the debtor's property is found at the time of garnishment — the garnishee triggers the process; the receuptor steps in afterward to hold the seized goods.
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Why It Matters in Research
Receuptor is a narrow, jurisdictionally limited term that appears in older American procedural law governing garnishment and execution. Several research traps are worth noting.
First, the term is largely obsolete in modern practice. Contemporary garnishment statutes generally assign custody of seized property to the sheriff, a court-appointed receiver, or the garnishee under court order, without using the term receuptor. A researcher encountering this word in historical pleadings, bonds, or court records should expect it in sources predating roughly the mid-twentieth century consolidation of civil procedure rules.
Second, the receuptor's bond is the operative legal instrument. Research into disputes involving a receuptor will almost always center on the bond — its conditions, the surety's obligations, and the consequences of failure to produce the property. Story's treatise on bailments (cited in Black's) treats the receuptor as a species of special bailee, and that framing governs how courts historically analyzed the receuptor's liability. Following the bailment thread is often more productive than searching for the term receuptor itself in case law indexes.
Third, jurisdictional coverage is uneven. Black's notes the term was used "in some of the states," not universally. A researcher should not assume the term or the accompanying procedural mechanism existed in the jurisdiction at issue without confirming it in that state's historical garnishment statutes or practice guides.
Fourth, corpus researchers should be alert to spelling variants. The term appears as receuptor, recouptor, and occasionally receiptor in historical sources — the last of which creates false-positive confusion with receipt-related terminology.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd ed., Supplemental) provides the only identified historical dictionary entry for this term. The definition is brief but precise: a receuptor is one who receives seized goods from the sheriff under garnishment process, upon giving bond for their forthcoming. The sole supporting citation is to Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Law of Bailments (§ 124), which situates the receuptor within the broader law of bailment — specifically as a party who, though not a voluntary bailee in the traditional sense, assumes custodial obligations enforceable through the bond.
No entry for receuptor appears in Bouvier's Law Dictionary or other standard historical dictionaries surveyed, which reflects both the term's regional limitation and its procedural specificity. The absence from Bouvier is notable given that work's breadth; it suggests receuptor never achieved uniform national usage.
Story's treatment remains the primary jurisprudential anchor for the concept. Researchers who need doctrinal depth beyond Black's bare definition should go directly to Story's bailment treatise rather than expecting substantial independent case law development under this precise term.
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Jurisdictional Note
The receuptor mechanism was not universal. Black's expressly limits the term to "some of the states," and no federal analog appears in the historical record. Where the concept existed, it was embedded in state-specific garnishment statutes, meaning the precise conditions of the bond and the receuptor's duties varied by jurisdiction. Modern researchers should treat the term as a historical artifact of pre-code state civil procedure.
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