1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Interpleader

INTERPLEADER, in English law, the form of action by which a person who is sued at law by two or more parties claiming adversely to each other for the recovery of money or goods wherein he has no interest, obtains relief by procuring the rival claimants to try their rights between or among themselves only. Originally the only relief available to the possessor against such adverse claims was by means of a bill of interpleader in equity. The Interpleader Act 1831 enabled the defendant in such cases, on application to the court, to have the original action stayed and converted into a trial between the two claimants. The Common Law Procedure Act of 1860 further extended the power of the common law courts in interpleader; and the Judicature Act 1875 enacted that the practice and procedure under these two statutes should apply to all divisions of the High Court of Justice. The Judicature Act also extended the remedy of interpleader to a debtor or other person liable in respect of a debt alleged to be assigned, when the assignment was disputed. In 1883 the acts of 1831 and 1860 were embodied in the form of rules by the Rules of the Supreme Courts (1883), O. lvii. by reference to which all questions of interpleader in the High Court of Justice are now determined. The acts themselves were repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act of the same year. Interpleader is the equivalent of multiplepoinding in Scots law.