Rule 66.Receivers

Rule 66 is short, but it protects an important interest: once a court has appointed a receiver to take charge of property caught up in a lawsuit, the parties cannot dismiss the action on their own and leave the receivership in limbo. Dismissal at that point requires a court order, giving the judge a chance to make sure the receivership is wound down properly, or handed off appropriately, before the underlying case disappears.

Beyond that protection, Rule 66 leaves the actual administration of a receivership — how the receiver manages, accounts for, and eventually distributes the property in its custody — to Tennessee’s existing statutes and the practice courts had already developed before the civil procedure rules were adopted. The rule does not itself say when a receiver should be appointed or what grounds justify one; those questions remain governed by the substantive law and case history behind receiverships, which historically required a claimant to show some recognized interest in specific property, such as a trust relationship, rather than a mere claim for money damages.

Everything else about a receivership action — pleading, discovery, motions, and the rest — follows the ordinary Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure like any other case. A receiver, once appointed, acts as an officer of the court rather than as an agent for whichever party sought the appointment, and the receivership can end up drawing in other creditors who have their own claims on the same property. Because a receivership can remain open even after the claims between the original parties are otherwise resolved, courts have had to work through what counts as a final, appealable judgment when the underlying dispute is over but the receivership itself is not.