Harkness v. Russell’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

70 federal appellate · 33 district · 116 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 257 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Such contracts are well known in the law, and often recognized, and when free from any fraudulent intent are not repugnant to any principle of justice or equity, even though possession of the property be given to the proposed purchaser. * * * The intent of the parties will be recognized and sanctioned where it is not contrary to the policy of the law. This policy, in England, is declared by statute. It has long been a provision of the English bankruptcy laws, beginning with 22 James I, c. 19, that if any person becoming bankrupt has in his possession, order, or disposition, by consent of the owner, any goods or chattels of which he Is the reputed owner, or takes upon himself the sale, alteration, or disposition thereof as owner, such goods are to be sold for the benefit of his creditors. This law has had the effect of preventing or defeating conditional sales accompanied by voluntary delivery of possession, except in cases like those before referred to; so that very few decisions are to he found in the English books directly in point on the question under consideration. * * * This presumption of property in a bankrupt, arising from his possession and reputed ownership, became so deeply imbedded in the English law that in process of time many persons in the profession, not adverting to its origin in the statute of bankruptcy, were led to regard it as a doctrine of the common law; and hence, in some states in this country, where no such statute exists, the principles of the st”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. In re Gray · John Deere Plow Co. of Moline v. Edgar Farmer Store Co.

2. ““It is only necessary to add that there is nothing either in the statute or adjudged law of Idaho (where the contract was made) to prevent, in this case, the operation of the general rule, which we consider to he established by overwhelming authority, namely, that, in the absence of fraud, an agreement for a conditional sale (of personal property) is good and valid, as well against third persons, as against the parties to the transaction, and the further rule that a bailee of personal property cannot convey the title, or subject it to execution for his own debts, until the condition on which the agreement to sell was made has been performed.””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Anderson v. Oklahoma Moline Plow Co. · Van Ausdle Hoffman Piano Co. v. Jain

3. ““That no mortgage, trust deed or other conveyance of personal property having the effect of a mortgage or lien upon such property, shall be valid as against the rights and interest of any third person, unless possession thereof shall be delivered to and remain with the grantee, or the instrument shall provide for the possession of the property to remain with the grantor, and the instrument is acknowledged and recorded as hereinafter directed; and every such instrument shall, for the purposes of this act, be deemed a chattel mortgage.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Arbuthnot v. Central Trust Co.