Referee in Bankruptcy

The act specified that referees were to be appointed by the district court for a term of two years, although they could be removed from office or have their jurisdiction over a particular case revoked at any time.

[1] Bankruptcy referees appointed under the Act of 1898 performed a wide range of judicial and administrative functions during the early part of the twentieth century, including the following: the consideration and adjudication of bankruptcy petitions submitted to the district courts; the examination of property schedules and lists of creditors filed by bankrupts; the administering of oaths and depositions to witnesses in bankruptcy proceedings; the maintenance of the records in such proceedings and the transmission of such records to the clerk of court; and the distribution of the property of bankrupts in cases where the district court judge was absent.

[1] Such duties made each referee a combination of special master and estate administrator until the late 1930s, when Congress transferred many of their administrative functions to bankruptcy trustees or clerks of court and increased the referees' judicial functions.

[1] In 1946, Congress provided a fixed salary for referees, increased their tenure from two to six years, and limited the circumstances under which they could be removed from office to incompetence, misconduct, or neglect of duty.

While these judges assumed the referees' judicial duties, the remaining administrative functions in most districts were transferred to trustees whose offices were placed under the supervision of the Department of Justice.