§ 25-326.Interpleader; when sheriff or other officer defendant.

Section 25-326 takes the interpleader mechanism built in section 25-325 and applies it to a specific, recurring situation: a sheriff or other officer sued over personal property the officer seized under a writ of execution, or over the proceeds from selling that property. An officer carrying out an execution is acting on someone else’s legal process, not asserting a personal claim to the property, so this section lets the officer shift the dispute to the person who benefits from the execution in the first place.

To use this protection, the officer being sued has to show the court the process — the execution — under which the property was taken, along with an affidavit confirming that the property or its proceeds were taken under that process. Once that showing is made, the officer is entitled to the same interpleader relief available under section 25-325, directed against the party in whose favor the execution issued rather than against some unconnected third party.

This keeps officers from being stuck personally defending property they seized only because the law required them to act on someone else’s execution. The real dispute — whether the property was rightfully subject to the execution — gets redirected to the party who obtained the execution in the first place, which is the person with an actual stake in the outcome.