Creditor

A person to whom a debt or some other obligation is due.

From Bouvier:

"He who has a right to require the fulfillment of an obligation or contract."

The United States Uniform Commercial Code defines the term as including:

"... a general creditor, a secured creditor, a lien creditor, and any representative of creditors, including an assignee for the benefit of creditors, a trustee in bankruptcy, a receiver in equity, and an executor or administrator of an insolvent debtor's or assignor's estate."

In Re Atlas Canning, Justice Drake wrote:

"Creditor, in its primary meaning, imports one to whom a debt is due, in a secondary meaning, one to whom money is owing but the period of payment has not arrived..."

REFERENCES:

• Duhaime, Lloyd, Legal Definition of Debtor
• Re Atlas Canning Co., 5 BCR 661 (1897; British Columbia Supreme Court)
• United States Uniform Commercial Code, published, as of 24-JUNE-2008, at law.cornell.edu/ucc/