Hays v. King’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

16 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 16 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[A] deed may have the effect of passing to the grantee a title subsequently acquired by the grantor. A grantor who executes a deed purporting to convey land to which he has no title or to which he has a defective title at the time of the conveyance will not be permitted, when he afterward acquires a good title to the land, to claim in opposition to his deed as against the grantee or any person claiming title under him____ One of the chief theories upon which this doctrine rests is that the deed operates on the after-acquired title by way of an estoppel, usually deemed to arise from some express or implied covenant or recital____ [T]o permit a grantor who sells land which he does not own to assert a subsequently acquired title against the grantee or those claiming under him would be to permit the grantor to perpetrate a fraud upon the grantee.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Rendleman v. Heinley