Merrill v. Town of Monticello’s Empirical Analysis
138 U.S. 673 · 1891
Citation profile
26 federal appellate · 8 district · 42 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 119 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2013 · most notably Texas Pac Ry Co v. Pottorff (1934), City of Brenham v. German-American Bank (1892)
26 federal appellate · 8 district · 42 state decisions — followed in 16 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on County of Dixon v. Field · Marsh v. Fulton County · Claiborne Co v. Brooks · Buchanan v. Litchfield · The Mayor v. Ray
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 119 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It is admitted that the power to borrow money, or to incur indebtedness, carries with it the power to issue the usual evidences of indebtedness, by the corporation, to the lender or other creditor. Such evidences may be in the form of promissory notes, warrants and, perhaps, most generally, in that of a bond. But there is a marked legal difference between the power to give a note to a lender for the amount of money borrowed, or to a creditor for the amount due, and the power to issue for sale, in open market, a bond, as a commercial security, with immunity, in the hands of a bona fide holder for value, from equitable defences.””
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““It isa general rule that a corporation can only act in the manner prescribed by law. When its agents do not clothe their proceedings with the solemnities which are required by the incorporating act to enable them to bind the company, the informality of the transaction, as has been properly urged at the bar, is itself conducive to the opinion that such act was rather considered as manifesting the terms on which they are willing to bind the company, as negotiations preparatory to a conclusive agreement, than as a contract obligatory on both. * * * The act of incorporation is to them an enabling act. It gives them all the power they possess. It enables them to contract, and, wbeu it prescribes a mode of contracting, they must observe that mode, or the instrument no more creates a contract than if the body had never been incorporated. ””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“'‘ The inability of municipal corporations to issue negotiable paper for their indebtedness, however incurred, unless authority for that purpose is expressly given or necessarily implied for the execution of other express powers, has been affirmed in repeated decisions of this court.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.