Kirk v. Hamilton’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

68 federal appellate · 10 district · 76 state decisions

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 199 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““He knew, as we have seen, that the defendants claimed the property under a sale made in an equity suit to which he was an original party. The sale may have been a nullity, and it may be that he could have repudiated it as a valid transfer of his right of property. Instead of pursuing that course, he, with á knowledge of all the facts, appeared before the auditor and disputed the right of certain creditors to be paid out of the fund which had been raised by the sale of his property.' He forbore to raise any question whatever as to the validity of the sale, and by his conduct indicated his purpose not to make any issue in reference to the proceedings in the equity suit. Knowing that the defendants’ claim to the premises rested upon that sale, he remained silent while the latter expended large sums in their improvement, and, in effect,” disclaimed title in himself. He was silent when good faith required him to put the purchaser on guard. He should not now be heard to say that that is not true which his conduct unmistakably declared was true, and upon the faith of which others acted.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Cheatham v. Edgefield Mfg. Co. · Jarrell v. Cole

2. ““The sale may have been a nullity, and it may be that he could have repudiated it as a valid transfer of his right of property. Instead of pursuing that course, he, with a knowledge of all the facts, appeared before the auditor and disputed the right of certain creditors to be paid out of the fund which had been raised by the sale of his property. He forbore to raise any question whatever as to the validity of the sale, and by his conduct indicated, his purpose not to make any issue in reference to the proceedings in the equity suit. * * * He was silent when good faith required him to put the purchaser on guard.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Wood v. Browning · Seminole Securities Co. v. Southern Life Ins.

3. ““There is no principle better established in this court nor one founded on more solid considerations of equity and public utility than that which declares that, if one man knowingly, though he does it passively by looking on, suffers another to purchase and expend money on land under an erroneous opinion of title, without making known his claim, he shall not afterwards be permitted to exercise his legal right against such person. It would be an act of fraud and injustice, and his conscience is bound by this equitable estoppel.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Union Pac. R. v. City of Greeley · State Upon the Information of McKittrick v. Missouri Utilities Co.