Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/893

SHAINWALD ». LEWIS. 879 �it is now BUggested by the counsel for respondeut that jm framing its final decree this court should order a referenoe ,to a loaeiter to report the naine of a person to be appointed as receiver, and that the person se appointed should be directed not to employ as counsel: or. Bolicitor the solicitor for the complainant. The integrity and cftpao- ity of the receiver already appointed are not called in question, ncx is the sufficiency of the bonds given by him. It is merely sujggested . that his relationship to the complainant renders him not indifferent between the parties, and that it is improper that he should be directed by the advice of the solicitor of one qf them. �A receiver is in general defined to be "an indifferent person be- tween the parties appointed by the court to receive and preserve the property or fund in litigation iJ«nd«nte iitc, when it does not seem rea- sonable to the court that eitherparty should hold it." High, Eec. § 1. Such are receiversin suits for dissolution of a partnership and many other cases. But the receiver iti the present suit occupies an essentially different position, and haa different functions to dischaijge. There is here ho lis penderts aato a fund, the ovmership of whicih ig undetermined. ' �The court bas finally decreed a^ainst the respondent for the pay- ment of a lai^e sumof money, whiph decree he hasfailed andrefused to^ satisfy in whole or in part ; it has, theref ore, compelled him to make a general assignment-to a receiver whom it has appointed, to the end that he may discover and obtain possession of the property of the respondent, which the latter a,dmits he has fraudulently; trang? ferred, secreted, and disposed of tvith the object and intent of evading the payment of the decree. If successful in baffling the admitted fraudulent designs of the respondent, .he can Qnly be so by t.he exer- cise of the utmost energy and industry, and probably by considerable litigation. He is not, and ought not to be, indifferent between the parties. His duty requires him to be the active adversary of this fraudulent debtor and his accomplices. In the selection of a person to discharge these duties, the respondent, in the position he now occupies, should have no voice, any more than the criminal should have in the choice of a detective to ferret out and recover the fruits of his crime. A person, therefore, who, by relationship or other con- nection, may be supposed to feel in some degree the desire felt by the complainant to collect the sum decreed to be due, would seem, if otherwise unobjectionable, to be eminently fit to be appointed a receiver in a case like the present. For it is not to be forgotten that ��� �