Eaves v. Estes’s Empirical Analysis
1872
Citation profile
20 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 21 later decisions — most recently July 1980
20 state decisions — followed in 14 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““As a general rule, improvements on real property inure to the mortgagee as part of his security; but whether any given piece of property becomes so attached to the freehold as to make it a part thereof is frequently a question of great difficulty. . . . The engine when built, and at the shop of builders, was unquestionably personal property. Under the light of adjudicated cases, and having no regard to the terms of the chattel mortgage, it may well be doubted whether it ever became a part of the realty as between vendor and vendee. . . . But when we consider the purpose of the parties, as evinced by the mortgage, to make the engine retain the character of a chattel, regardless of the manner of its attachment to the mill, and as the mortgage violated no principle of law, wrought no injury to the rights of any, and was in the interest of trade, we have no doubt that the engine continued to be personal property. . . . It is not intended to decide that parties can by any arrangement make property either real or personal as they may choose.” (pp. 316, 317.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.