Libby v. Hopkins’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

45 federal appellate · 19 district · 41 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 176 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““In all cases of mutual debts or mutual credits between the estate oí a bankrupt and a creditor the account shall be stated and one debt shall be set off against the other, and the balance only shall be allowed or paid.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Alvord v. Ryan · In re Yamini Dry Goods Co.

2. ““These authorities make it clear that, even under the Bankrupt Act of 5 Geo. II, the plaintiffs would have no right to the set-off claimed by them. And they lose sight of the controlling fact that the money and the drafts which they turned into money were remitted, with express directions to apply them on a specific debt. Without the consent of Hopkins they could never be changed into a debt due to him from the plaintiffs, and that consent has never been given. Whether or not he had the right to direct the application is immaterial. There was no legal obstacle to the application as directed. The fact that he gave the direction imposed on the plaintiffs the obligation to apply the money as directed, or to return it to him. They had no better right to refuse to make the application and to retain the money and set off against it the debt due to them from Hopkins, than if they had been directed to pay the money on a debt due from him to another of his creditors, or than they had to apply to the payment of his debt to them money which he left with them as a special deposit. Hopkins sent them the money and drafts, upon the faith and trust that they would be applied according to his instructions. The refusal so to apply them did not change the relations of the parties to this fund, nor make that a debt which before such refusal was a trust. To so hold would be to permit a trustee to better his condition by a refusal to execute a trust which he had assumed.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Alvord v. Ryan

3. ““To authorize a set-off, there must be mutual credits or mutual debts. The remitting by Hopkins to the plaintiffs in error of certain money assets, to be applied by them according to his instructions, did not make the plaintiffs in error his debtors, but his trustees. So that there were in the ease no mutual credits or debts. The indebtedness was all on the side of Hopkins. The plaintiffs in error owed him nothing. They held his money in trust to apply it as directed by him.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. In re Sandy's Novelty Corp.