White v. Thomas’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 federal appellate ·

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

1. “. . . When what is received by a compromise is a part of the very thing claimed, the assertion is correct. If White, claiming all the ranch as a gift, had been conceded part of it, the land he thus got would stand as a gift. But in this case he got no land, but money. Yet he never claimed the Shannons had given him any money. The executors and trustees had no authority to give him anything, and did not intend to. They paid him money for the release of the right which he claimed in the land. White sold that right, and conveyed it by suffering the adverse judgments. He converted it into cash; and the gain from the conversion of a gift is taxable, though the receipt of the gift originally was not. He did not sell the land itself, for he had neither title nor possession. He could not deduct the cost of the land to the Shannons, for they never parted with it and no proof of their cost was made. He sold only his claim to recover it, which was in the nature of an incumbrance on the title, at a price which was only a fraction of the value of the land; and that claim he does not say cost him anything. What he received is income. 116 F. 2d 147 -8.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Parker v. United States · 215 Ct. Cl. 773 - Parker v. United States