Peters v. Bain’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

125 federal appellate · 44 district · 100 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 355 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Formerly the equitable right of following misapplied money or other property into the hands of the parties receiving it depended upon the ability of identifying it; •the equity attaching only to the very property misapplied. This right was first extended to the proceeds of the property, namely, to that which was procured in .place of it by exchange, purchase, or Sale. But if it became confused with other property of the same kind, so as not to be distinguishable, without any fault on the part of the possessor, the equity was lost. Finally, however, it has been held as the better doctrine that confusion does not destroy the equity entirely, but converts it into a charge upon the entire mass, giving to the party injured by the unlawful diversion a priority of right over the other creditors of the possessor.””

   17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. San Diego County v. California Nat. Bank · Boone County Nat. Bank v. Latimer

2. ““There the purchases were made with moneys that cannot be identified as belonging to the bank. The payments were all, so far as now appears, from tile general fund then in the possession and under the control of the firm. Some of the money of the bank may have gone into this fund, but it was not distinguishable from the rest. The mixture of the money of the bank with the money of the firm did not make the bank the owner of the whole. All the bank could, in any event, claim would be the right to draw out of the general mass of money, so long as it remained money, an amount equal to that which had been wrongfully taken from its own. possession and put there. Purchases made and1 paid for out of the general mass cannot be claimed by the bank, unless it is shown that its own moneys then in the fund were appropriated for that purpose. Nothing of the kind has been attempted here, and it has not even been shown that, when the property in this class was purchased. the firm had in its possession any of the moneys of the bank which could bo reclaimed in specie. To give a cestui que trust the benefit of purchases by his trustees, it must be satisfactorily shown that they were actually made with the trust funds.””

   4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Metropolitan Nat. Bank v. Campbell Commission Co. · Board of Com'rs v. Patterson

3. “The doctrine of election rests upon the principle that he who seeks equity must do it, and means, as the term is ordinarily used, that where two inconsistent or alternative rights or claims are presented to the choice of a party, by a person who manifests the clear intention that he should not enjoy both, then he must accept or reject one or the other; and so, in other words, that one cannot take a benefit under an instrument and then repudiate it.”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Three Rivers Land Co., Inc. v. Maddoux · Electrical Research Products, Inc. v. Haniotis Bros.