trustee
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 289 U.S. 172 - Reinecke v. Smith · 1933Most cited · 300 citing opinions
the person who holds title to the res and administers it for the benefit of others
How the Supreme Court has restated “trustee”
Each Supreme Court definition of “trustee,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “trustee”
Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “trustee” — 418 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 3 definitions, chronological · 1857–1933
- ORIGINAL
The duty of a trustee, whether of real or personal estate, to defend the title, at law or in equity, in case a suit is brought against it, is unquestioned, and the expenses are properly chargeable in his accounts against the estate.
there is no presumption of a right to sell it, as there is in the case of an executor. In the former case the property is held for custody, in the latter for administration.