Definition
The return of property to the person who previously held or was entitled to it. Redelivery most commonly arises in the context of bailment, where a bailee who has received and held goods for a specific purpose is obligated to return them to the bailor upon completion of that purpose. It also arises in attachment and levy proceedings, where a debtor or third party may obtain the release of seized personal property by posting a bond conditioned on either returning the property or satisfying the levy.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "The act or process of redelivering; a second or subsequent delivery."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Act of delivering back. A second or new delivery or liberation."
The ordinary meaning tracks the legal meaning more closely than in many terms, but the legal concept carries a precise obligatory character absent from the common usage. In ordinary speech, redelivery is simply a repeat transaction. In law, redelivery describes a duty — the obligation of one who holds another's property to restore it — and triggers enforceable consequences when that duty is not met. The common meaning also misses the procedural role redelivery plays in attachment law, where it is the mechanism by which a debtor regains possession of seized property pending adjudication.
Core Elements
In the bailment context, redelivery requires:
- Return to the correct party: The bailee must return the goods to the bailor or to a person the bailor has authorized to receive them. Delivery to the wrong party, even in good faith, may not discharge the bailee's obligation.
- Return of the specific property: Redelivery ordinarily means the identical goods, not equivalent goods, unless the bailment contemplated fungible substitution (as in a grain warehouse or similar deposit).
- Return in proper condition: Depending on the nature of the bailment and the applicable standard of care, the bailee may be liable for deterioration or damage occurring while the property was in their possession.
- Timely return: Redelivery must occur within the time fixed by the bailment agreement or, absent a fixed term, upon reasonable demand.
In attachment and levy proceedings, redelivery operates through a redelivery bond (also called a delivery bond or forthcoming bond), by which the party whose property has been seized obtains its release in exchange for a surety obligation to return the property or pay its value if the levy is sustained.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Redelivery Bond (Redelivery Bond / Forthcoming Bond): A bond given to a sheriff or other officer who has attached or levied upon personal property, securing release of that property to its holder pending determination of the underlying claim. The condition of the bond is that the property will be redelivered to the officer, or its value paid, if the attachment or levy is adjudged valid. Failure to honor the bond renders the sureties liable for the value of the property.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in nineteenth-century commercial and personal property disputes will encounter redelivery primarily in two distinct doctrinal contexts — bailment and attachment — and the sources do not always signal which is in play. Early case law uses "redelivery" interchangeably with "return" in bailment contexts and "forthcoming" in levy contexts, so checking the procedural posture of a case is essential before drawing doctrinal conclusions.
The redelivery bond is the more procedurally active concept in the corpus and is easily confused with other forms of surety bond used in litigation (appearance bonds, appeal bonds, injunction bonds). In jurisdictions where the forthcoming bond had a distinct statutory form, courts drew sharp lines between a redelivery bond and a general appearance bond; conflating them in research can produce misleading results about a party's rights and obligations.
In bailment research, the duty of redelivery is the endpoint of the bailee's obligation and is where most bailment litigation concentrates. Researchers should trace whether early sources treat wrongful redelivery as sounding in tort (conversion) or contract (breach of the bailment agreement), as the available remedies differ substantially depending on the theory adopted by a particular court or jurisdiction.
The redelivery bond entry in Black's 2nd edition cites Drake v. Sworts, 24 Or. 198 (1893), which offers a concrete example of the bond's operation in an attachment context and is a useful anchor for researchers locating period-specific authority.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries converge on a single, spare definition: "a yielding and delivering back of a thing." This unanimity reflects how settled the core concept was by the time these dictionaries were compiled. Black's 2nd edition adds meaningful value by defining the redelivery bond specifically and providing a case citation, making it the most practically useful of the three sources for researchers dealing with attachment and levy questions. Rapalje & Lawrence offer nothing beyond the base definition. Neither Black's 1st edition nor Rapalje & Lawrence address the bond instrument, which means researchers relying solely on those sources for attachment practice will find a gap that Black's 2nd edition fills.
None of the historical dictionaries address the bailment-specific elements of proper redelivery in any detail — the question of who constitutes the correct recipient, or what condition the property must be returned in. For that substance, researchers must look beyond the dictionaries to treatise literature on bailment (Story's Commentaries on the Law of Bailments being the primary historical source) and to case law directly.
Jurisdictional Note
The procedural mechanics and nomenclature of the redelivery bond vary by jurisdiction. Some states codified the forthcoming bond in attachment statutes under different names (delivery bond, forthcoming bond, replevin bond), and the conditions and surety obligations differ accordingly. Researchers should not assume that the bond described in one state's case law maps directly onto the instrument available in another jurisdiction without checking the applicable statute.