Arkansas Valley Smelting Co. v. Belden Mining Co.’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

91 federal appellate · 31 district · 153 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 334 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““At the present day, no doubt, an agreement to pay money, or to deliver goods, may be assigned by the person to whom the money is to be paid or the goods are to be delivered, if there is nothing in the terms of the contract, whether by requiring something to be afterwards done by him, or by some other stipulation, which manifests the intention of the parties that it shall not be assignable. * * * The contract here sued on was one by which the defendant agreed to deliver 10,000 tons of lead ore from its mines to Billing and Eilers at their smelting works. The ore was to be delivered at the rate of 50 tons a day, and it was expressly agreed that it should become the property of Billing and Eilers as soon as delivered. The price was not fixed by the contract, or payable upon the delivery of the ore. But, as often as a hundred tons of ore had been delivered, the ore was to be assayed by the parties or one of them, and, if they could not agree, by an umpire ; and it was only after all this had been done, and according to the result of the assay, and the proportions of lead, silver, silica and iron, thereby proved to bo in the ore, that the price was to be ascertained and paid. During the time that must elapse between the delivery of the ore, and the ascertainment and payment of the price, the defendant had no security for its payment, except in the character and solvency of Billing and Eilers. The defendant, therefore, could not be compelled to accept the liability of any other pe”

   21 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Burck v. Taylor · Wheeler v. Walton & Whann Co.

2. ““Under the code, however, the assignee of a cause of action arising ex contractu, • which can properly be assigned, is the real party in interest, and, as such, may maintain the action in his own name. “ (bb) In Federal Courts. By virtue of the practice conformity act, an assignee of a cause of action arising ex contractu may, as the real party in interest, sue in his own name in .the federal courts sitting in code states, and that, too, according to some decisions, though the assignor retains an interest in the cause of action assigned. But before the adoption of this act the rule was otherwise.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Degnan v. Nowlin

3. “Cases of agreements to sell and deliver goods for a fixed price, payable in cash on delivery, in which the owner would receive the price at the time of parting with his property, nothing further would remain to be done by the purchaser, and the rights of the seller could not be affected by the question whether the price was paid by the person with whom he originally contracted or by an assignee.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Lambert Inc. v. Starbrand Sales Corp.