Bailee

One to whom Personal Property is entrusted for a particular purpose by another, the bailor, according to the terms of an express or implied agreement.

Cross-references

Bailment.

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bailee (custodian) n. a person with whom some article is left, usually pursuant to a contract (called a "contract of bailment"), who is responsible for the safe return of the article to the owner when the contract is fulfilled. These can include banks holding bonds, storage companies where furniture or files are deposited, a parking garage, or a kennel or horse ranch where an animal is boarded. Leaving goods in a sealed rented box like a safe deposit box, is not a bailment, and the holder is not a bailee since he cannot handle or control the goods. (See: bailment, bailor)

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BAILEE, contracts. One to whom goods are bailed.
     2. His duties are to act in good faith he is bound to use extraordinary diligence in those contracts or bailments, where he alone receives the benefit, as in loans; he must observe ordinary diligence of those bailments, which are beneficial to both parties, as hiring; and he will be responsible for gross negligence in those bailments which are only for the benefit of the bailor, is deposit and mandate. Story's Bailm. Sec. 17, 18, 19. He is bound to return the property as soon as the purpose for which it was bailed shall have been accomplished.
     3. He has generally a right to retain and use the thing bailed, according to the contract, until the object of the bailment shall have been accomplished.
     4. A bailee with a mere naked authority, having a right to remuneration for his trouble, but coupled with no other interest, may support trespass for any injury, amounting to a trespass, done while he was in the actual possession of the thing. 4 Bouv. Inst. n. 3608.