22 U.S.C. § 4198: Bond as administrator or…

Summary

No U.S. consular officer may take a job from a foreign government to manage an estate, act as an administrator or guardian, or handle the property of someone who is dead or cannot manage their own affairs unless they first give a bond with security. The Secretary of State must approve the bond, set its amount and form, and the bond must promise honest performance and correct accounting. The bond is filed with the Secretary of the Treasury. If the officer breaks the bond, any person harmed can sue on the bond in their own name and recover damages and court costs. If the suer loses, they must pay the defendant’s costs. The United States is not responsible. The bond stays in force until the full penalty is recovered.

Title 22, §4198

Foreign Relations and Intercourse, Source: USLM XML via OLRC

No consular officer of the United States shall accept an appointment from any foreign state as administrator, guardian, or to any other office or trust for the settlement or conservation of estates of deceased persons or of their heirs or of persons under legal disabilities, without executing a bond, with security, to be approved by the Secretary of State, and in a penal sum to be fixed by him and in such form as he may prescribe, conditioned for the true and faithful performance of all his duties according to law and for the true and faithful accounting for delivering, and paying over to the persons thereto entitled of all moneys, goods, effects, and other property which shall come to his hands or to the hands of any other person to his use as such administrator, guardian, or in other fiduciary capacity. Said bond shall be deposited with the Secretary of the Treasury. In case of a breach of any such bond, any person injured by the failure of such officer faithfully to discharge the duties of his said trust according to law, may institute, in his own name and for his sole use, a suit upon said bond and thereupon recover such damages as shall be legally assessed, with costs of suit, for which execution may issue in due form; but if such party fails to recover in the suit, judgment shall be rendered and execution may issue against him for costs in favor of the defendant; and the United States shall in no case be liable for the same. The said bond shall remain, after any judgment rendered thereon, as a security for the benefit of any person injured by a breach of the condition of the same until the whole penalty has been recovered.

Editorial Notes

Codification Section was not enacted as part of the Foreign Service Act of 1980 which comprises this chapter. Section was formerly classified to section 1178 of this title, and prior thereto to section 78 of this title.

§4198 Bond as Administrator or Guardian; Action on Bond

Summary

Title 22, §4198

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

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