Opinion ID: 2357800
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: In Custodii Legis

Text: Receiver contends that the appointment of a receiver on April 23, 1953, caused the property to be in custodii legis, thereby placing it beyond the claim of the Kluckhuhns, citing Day v. Postal Tel. Co., 66 Md. 354, 7 A. 608 (1887); Dampman v. Litzau, 261 Md. 196, 274 A.2d 347 (1971); and E. Miller, Equity Procedure § 613 at 720-721 (1897). His reliance on the cited authorities is misplaced. In Day and Dampman, both supra, it is clear that the receiver was actually in possession of the disputed property. E. Miller, Equity Procedure in a later section of that classic authority clearly stated the true rule governing inception of property to in custodii legis as follows: Property is not taken under the protection of the court by the order appointing a receiver and by the bonding of the latter; the summary jurisdiction of the court is not to be interposed until the property is taken charge of by the receiver. The authorities speak of the appointment and possession by the receivers as necessary in order to place the property in the custody of the court. Thus in a case where receivers were not in possession of property at the time of its seizure under a distress, it was held that their mere appointment did not place the property, as against a stranger, in custodia legis; actual possession was necessary. It is said that the appointment of a receiver of property does not, of itself, divest any one of possession of the property; it merely authorizes the receiver to demand, and to accept, the possession when voluntarily delivered, or to take it when held by no one else. E. Miller, Equity Procedure § 616, at 723 (1897) (footnotes omitted). So, in Farmers Bank of Del. v. Beaston, 7 G. & J. 421, 428 (1836), this Court held that the appointment and bonding of a receiver did not prevent attachment of property until it is taken in charge by the receiver. The United States Supreme Court affirmed this decision in Beaston v. Farmers Bank of Del., 37 U.S. 102, 12 Pet. 72, 9 L.Ed. 1017 (1838). To the same effect is Witbeck v. Electro Nuclear, 243 Md. 563, 572-73, 221 A.2d 888, 893 (1966). See also 16 Fletcher, Cyclopedia of the Law of Private Corporations § 7787, at 337 (Perm. ed. 1979). In the subject case it was not until the filing of this bill of complaint on December 10, 1979,  more than twenty-three years after the adverse possession of the property by the Kluckhuhns had begun  that any effort was made by the initial receiver or his successors to secure possession of the real property. The principle of property in custodii legis simply has no application to the facts of this case.