Stakeholder

A third person, chosen by two or more persons, to keep in deposit property, the right or possession of which is contested between them and to be delivered to the one who shall establish his right to it. Thus each of them is considered as depositing the whole thing. This distinguishes this contract from that which takes place when two or more tenants in common deposit a thing with a bailee.

A person having in his hands money or other property claimed by several others, is considered in equity as a stakeholder.

The duties of a stakeholder are to deliver the thing holden by him to the person entitled to it on demand. It is frequently questionable who is entitled to it. In case of an unlawful wager, although be may be justified for delivering the thing to the winner, by the express or implied consent of the loser yet if before the event has happened he has been required by either party to give up the thing deposited with him by such party, he is bound so to deliver it or if, after the event has happened, the losing party give notice to the stakeholder not to pay the winner, a payment made to him afterwards will be made in his own wrong, and the party who deposited the money or thing may recover it from the stakeholder.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.